


After the Dust Has Cleared

by missbecky



Series: Still Standing [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:53:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>El takes Sands with him when he decides to go after the remains of Barillo's cartel. First in the Still Standing trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Dust Has Cleared

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted to ff.net in September 2003, immediately after the film came out. When making it ready for posting here, I resisted the temptation to revise it and update the pop culture references.
> 
> Originally the story was posted with 12 separate chapters under ff.net's system. Due to the short chapter length, I decided not to post it using AO3's chapter set-up, but I am keeping the original chapter headers intact, mostly for the sake of clarity.

Chapter 1: Conscience Calling

 

Ramirez was halfway out of town when what was left of his conscience pricked at him.

This was so surprising that he slammed on the brakes, causing the pickup truck behind him to veer hard to the left, in order to avoid his car. He no more noticed this than he saw the driver flip him off.

His conscience, shocked by the fact that he was listening, gathered its courage and spoke up. _You should go back. Help him._

Ramirez scowled. He had no liking for Sands, none at all. But sometimes the punishment outweighed the sin, and there was no denying Sands had gotten a raw deal.

"Fuck it," Ramirez muttered. "He probably won’t even live."

 _You don’t know that_ , whispered his conscience, then wisely decided to shut up while it was still ahead.

Cursing the whole time, Ramirez slammed the car into reverse, slewed it around, and drove back the way he had come.

****

Not surprisingly, he found Sands right where he had left him. The CIA agent was sitting against the wall now, blood pooling on the sidewalk beneath him from his wounded leg. The kid with the yellow T-shirt was nowhere in sight.

Ramirez drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Looked around. There was nobody watching him. Everyone’s attention on this day was on the coup, and the dead bodies littering the parade route. The village would probably never recover, Ramirez thought sourly. He found he didn’t really care. He had liked his little house, fifteen miles away – far enough for him to have the illusion of privacy, but close enough to still know what was going on in his home – but he would not miss it. 

Maybe it was time to go back home. Back to the U.S.

He got out of the car. At the wall, Sands stirred, hearing the door slam, but did not otherwise move.

Ramirez shook his head. He didn’t want to feel pity for the CIA agent. The brass in DC had sent Sands down here partly because no one wanted someone like him around, and partly because, well, whether you liked him or not you had to admit the man did have a twisted brilliance for manipulation. Sands was the man who made things happen in Mexico, and everyone knew it. They just chose to ignore the fact that he did it his way, with illegal payoffs and a very unauthorized penchant for meddling in the political arena.

 _Well, what goes around comes around_ , Ramirez thought. _Guess you found that one out the hard way._

He squatted in front of the agent. "Where’s the kid?"

Sands tried to smile. The bleeding from his eyes had finally stopped, and his face looked like a Halloween mask. Ramirez had a brief moment when he wondered what he would see if he removed Sands' sunglasses, then decided he didn’t want to know. 

"How the fuck should I know?" Sands slurred. "I gave him some money, told him to find a doctor who wouldn’t ask questions. But for all I know he’s out there buying crack with it."

Ramirez slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. He had seen the light of hero worship in the boy’s eyes. He didn’t think the kid would betray Sands any time soon.

To his credit, Sands knew it too. "Okay, okay, so he’s not buying crack. But what are you still doing here?"

"Hell if I know," Ramirez said, and hauled the CIA agent to his feet.

Sands cried out, and tottered gracelessly, trying to keep his weight on his uninjured leg. One hand flailed, looking for something to hold onto. A lock of his hair fell into his face and stuck there, on the drying blood on his cheek. He smelled of blood and sweat and gunpowder, and thoroughly disgusted Ramirez.

"Inter-agency cooperation, my ass," he muttered. He grimaced as he put his arm about Sands' shoulders. 

"Jorge." Sands' voice was little more than a whisper. His head hung low. The bored cynicism he normally affected was gone. For the first time in his life, he had lost control of things, and the results were more than even someone like him could ever have imagined. 

Ramirez’s mouth tightened as he fought back another swell of pity. "My car’s over here," he said. He began walking, half-carrying, half-dragging Sands with him.

"My hero," Sands mumbled, but it was a reflexive response, with no real bite to it.

"Promises, promises," Ramirez said, keeping his voice light, as though he helped corrupt CIA agents every day. 

He opened the back door of the car and shoved Sands in its general direction. "Just try not to bleed all over the upholstery."

Sands said nothing as he crawled into the back of the car, and that alone told Ramirez all he needed to know. The man had been shot three times and his eyes had been torn out. If he did not get to a doctor fast, he was going to bleed to death.

Ramirez shut the door and stood still for a moment, reflecting. He would probably be doing the world a favor if he let Sands die, but then, if he did that he would be no better than someone like Barillo. Besides, he had come this far, he couldn’t back down now.

He opened the driver’s side door and then looked up. Coming toward him, across the street, was the kid. And he had an older man with him. A man with a black doctor’s bag.

"I’ll be damned," Ramirez said. An unwilling smile stretched his mouth. He waved his arm, beckoning the unlikely duo his way. 

The kid broke into a run, and skidded to a dusty halt just in front of Ramirez. He peered into the back of the car, saw Sands lying there, and looked up at the retired FBI agent. "Will he be all right?"

Ramirez nodded. "Yeah, I think he will be."

******************

Chapter 2: A Knock at the Door

 

Someone was knocking on the door. 

Despite the fact that the sound sent a thrill of fear through him, Ramirez was grateful to whoever was out there. Maybe he was even grateful because of the fear, who the hell knew anymore?

It was nearly dawn, he saw, as he approached the door. He blinked in surprise. If it was dawn, that meant it was a new day. It meant he had survived the previous day, and the hellish night that had come after.

The knock came at the door again. He wondered who had found him first – FBI or CIA. Surely they would come calling, all the way down from DC, and then all hell would break loose. There was a chance that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life in federal prison, but it was a very slim chance, and Ramirez knew it.

He was almost to the point of not caring. Let them come. He would smile at them, welcome them inside his house, and calmly direct them to the back bedroom where his unwanted houseguest was currently residing. Hell, he’d even hold the door open for them on their way out.

 _Don’t be an asshole_ , his conscience said. Ever since it had conned him into turning the car around yesterday morning, that little voice inside his head hadn’t let up once. _You know it isn’t his fault_ , it said now. _So. Just. Don’t. Be an asshole._

They had left the village around noon, the doctor in the front seat, the kid in the yellow T-shirt sitting in back with Sands. And a little later, still ten miles away from Ramirez’s house, the drugs the cartel had given Sands had worn off, and the man had begun to scream.

Ramirez would never forget those screams. The CIA agent had begged for something for the pain, clutching his face and moaning, swearing that he would kill every last fucker in Mexico and piss on their still-warm bodies when he was done. Ramirez had been ready to pull over to the side of the road so he could safely turn around and beat the shit out of the man when Sands had finally passed out.

Since then the doctor had come and gone twice, the kid had thrown up on the carpet in the living room before running back to whatever passed for his home, and Ramirez had had to listen to the drugged-up, pain-crazed rantings of a man he had never even liked much in the first place.

It was enough to drive someone mad, he reflected.

The knock at the door sounded again. This time it sounded pissed off. 

"All right, all right!" Ramirez shouted. He pulled his gun and held it down low, against his thigh. "Quien es?"

There was no response, which meant it wasn’t the FBI. "Okay, then." Bracing himself for whatever was on his front porch, Ramirez opened the door.

The man who stood there looked familiar, but it took Ramirez a long moment to place him. He had dark hair down to his shoulders and he wore the outfit of a mariachi. He looked different without a gun in his hand, and that was why Ramirez took so long to recognize him. 

He looked out into the darkness that was just giving way to dawn, trying to tell if the musician had come alone. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk," the man said. 

Ramirez thought about the man in his guest bedroom and hesitated. If Sands went off on another tirade, there was no telling what this black-clad stranger might do. And he would be damned if his house became another killing ground like the streets of the village. 

Without waiting for an invitation, the man in the mariachi outfit pushed his way into the house. Ramirez shut the door and put his gun away. He didn’t know this man, but he figured if the stranger had wanted to kill him, there had been ample opportunity in El Presidente’s compound. He would take his chances.

The compound. Ramirez sucked in his breath. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. He cast a reluctant but admiring glance toward the back bedroom, as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Sands had set up quite an elaborate house of cards with his schemes. It was almost a shame that the whole structure had come tumbling down. "You were the man inside, weren’t you?"

El Mariachi turned around. "I was," he said. He did not seem surprised that Ramirez knew that. His dark eyes swept the foyer, the habit of a man who had grown accustomed to watching his back. "And you, are FBI."

"Retired," Ramirez said. 

"And you came out of retirement for Barillo?" El Mariachi asked. He stood with a deceptive grace, ready to spring. 

"Something like that," Ramirez agreed. He guessed that if it came to a cold draw against this man, he would be shot dead before his gun ever cleared its holster.

El Mariachi nodded. He walked across the foyer, into the living room. "And you did not finish what you started." He turned and looked at Ramirez. "Because I killed Barillo. Not you."

And suddenly Ramirez understood what this visit was about. "He’s dead," he said. "That’s all I care about." He had avenged his dead partner and friend. He had done his duty, and he had done the right thing. He could face himself in the mirror again. That was what mattered, not who had pulled the trigger, or whose bullet had done the killing.

"There is no," El Mariachi paused, "dishonor here?"

Ramirez dared to smile. "No," he said. "I’m not going to hunt you down for stealing my kill, if that’s what you’re afraid of."

El Mariachi did not smile back. 

It was probably not a good idea to accuse this man of cowardice, even as a joke. Ramirez opened his mouth to apologize, and from the back bedroom, Sands chose that moment to call out. "Jorge?"

El’s eyes went flat.

 _Oh shit._ Ramirez held up a hand. "This is not what you think," he said quickly. He made a placating gesture, the kind he would give a dog he was ordering to stay, and hurried to the back of the house.

Sands was sitting up in bed, leaning heavily against the headboard. A bloodstained bandage was wrapped about his head, covering the place where his eyes had been. The waterglass that had been on the nightstand was knocked over, and water was pooling on the carpet. "Jorge?"

"What?" he asked, nervously aware that El Mariachi had come up to stand right behind him in the doorway. 

The CIA agent looked like shit. Pale, trembling, wearing a dark shirt far too big for him that Ramirez had grudgingly lent him from the back of his closet. "You know that dream, Jorge, the one where everything around you turns to shit, and you’re standing there watching it all happen, and you’re trying to scream, but you can’t, and then you wake up and sit bolt upright in bed and you shake and you sweat but you realize, it was only a nightmare? Well that, my friend, is my life now. Only I’m never going to wake up from it." He reached out, slapping at the nightstand until he found the half-empty waterglass, and threw it in the general direction of the door. It landed harmlessly on the carpet a good foot away from where Ramirez stood. "Do you hear me? My life is a fucking nightmare and I am never going to wake up!"

Ramirez fought the urge to grab the crowbar from its resting place in the garage and brain the man. He turned to El Mariachi and gave an apologetic shrug. "The cartel," he mouthed. He curled his fingers into claws and made a plucking motion at his eye, then pointed to Sands.

El Mariachi looked at the CIA agent, and for a moment he looked almost sympathetic. Then his face hardened, and he nodded. "At least you are still alive," he said.

Sands must have been really out of it, for he startled upon hearing El Mariachi’s voice. But he did not hesitate. He rolled to one side, his hand plunging under the mattress. Before Ramirez could do more than marvel at the man’s speed when he was injured so badly, Sands was sitting up again, a gun in his hand. "I thought I told you no visitors, Jorge."

"I am not here to visit you," El said. He looked completely unperturbed by the gun, and with good reason; Sands was aiming two feet to the man’s right.

The moment El spoke, however, Sands shifted his aim, and now the muzzle of the gun was pointed directly at the musician. "How nice. Now why don’t you and Jorge both go fuck off?"

El walked forward, pushing Ramirez out of the way in order to get through the doorway. "Put that away."

Sands pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the wall behind El Mariachi, having missed him by a mere inch. El never flinched, but Ramirez shouted in dismay. "Hey! This is my house!"

"Shut up," Sands hissed. He was shaking so badly he could barely hold the gun straight, but he gave no sign of backing down.

With a smooth grace Ramirez would never have been able to achieve, El moved forward and took the gun from Sands. "Now, what are you going to do?"

Sands slumped back against the headboard of the bed. He spread his arms, a melodramatic gesture made difficult by the sling binding his left arm. "Fine," he said, with the same exaggerated boredom that had always marked his speech before. "Shoot me. What do I care anymore?"

El Mariachi studied Sands' gun as though to memorize it. Ramirez could almost see the wheels in his head turning. The man was obviously not adept at planning; it was clear he worked much better spontaneously. "They tell me," he said slowly, "you killed two of Barillo’s men."

Ramirez gave El a hard look, and wondered just who had told him that.

"Actually," Sands drawled, "it was four men. Well, really it was only three, because one of them was a woman."

Ramirez started. "Ajedrez?"

"Well, just between us three," Sands said, "her name was really Barillo. But let’s keep that confidential, okay?" He was laboring now to maintain his casual attitude, but Ramirez respected him for trying. He didn’t like the man, but he had to admit, Sands sure had guts. 

"Barillo had a daughter?" asked El Mariachi. He sounded just as surprised as Ramirez felt.

"Apparently so," Sands said. Abruptly he dropped the bored act. "And I find myself wishing I hadn’t killed the bitch, so I could do it again. Much more slowly, this time."

"Vengeance," El Mariachi said, so quietly he almost seemed to be caressing the word.

"What do you want from me?" Sands asked. "You want to shoot me? Be my guest. Otherwise, leave me the fuck alone." 

El Mariachi spun Sands' gun absently on his forefinger. On his face Ramirez saw the same reluctant respect he himself felt. "The cartel still stands. They will regroup."

"Well then, I guess you have something to do with your time, don’t you? You just go on and toddle off, go be a good son of Mexico. Save us all from the evil cartels. While you’re at it, why don’t you look for someone who sells really nice glass eyeballs?"

Ramirez took a step forward. "You’re going to take on the cartels?" he asked in shock. He had suspected El Mariachi was reckless, but this was flat out insane.

The guitarist gave him a crooked smile. "Your friend here said to me once that I had nothing to live for. Maybe that was true once, but perhaps now I have found something."

"What?" Ramirez shook his head. "Mexico?"

El Mariachi said nothing, but Ramirez knew he had guessed right. "They will kill you," he said. "They are probably hunting for you already. You should leave, before it is too late."

"I am tired of seeing the people of this country run and cower from men like Barillo," said El Mariachi. His eyes had gone flat again, completely emotionless. "Men like my brother. Men like Marquez."

Ramirez sighed. Once he had felt that way too. It was why he had requested to be assigned to Mexico in the first place. He was tired of the drug runners and the corruption in his country, and the way it spilled over into his new country, America. He had joined the FBI so full of ideals, and now, thirty years later, not a single one still stood. Over time they had all been tarnished or ripped away. 

But apparently enough of that idealism still remained, however, for him to feel a fleeting desire to join the stranger in the mariachi clothing. Maybe it was possible for one man to make a difference, when that man was someone like El Mariachi.

"You know," Sands remarked, "if I had eyes this would be the part where I start boo-hooing and swear my allegiance to you. Unfortunately, I don’t. So I’ll just have to renew my request that you _fuck off_ and leave me alone." He slumped a little further down in the bed.

El Mariachi walked up to Ramirez and handed him Sands' gun. "How long before he is ready to go?"

Ramirez shrugged. "A few days."

"I’ll come back then," El Mariachi said.

*********************

Chapter 3: El Gets a New Partner

 

El waited a week before going back to Ramirez’s house. He went alone. When he had told his friends what he meant to do, Lorenzo had laughed and said he was crazy. Fideo was drinking again and didn’t give a shit about anything except where his next bottle came from, so he hadn’t said anything, but even if he had, El wouldn’t have cared. After all these years, he had a purpose again, and he meant to stick to it. It was, after all, the only thing he had.

Ramirez, the FBI agent, didn’t look happy to see him, but then, Ramirez was one of those men who had a face that never looked happy, so that too didn’t bother El. "I didn’t think you were really coming back."

"Is he ready?" he asked.

"You’ll have to drag him out of here," Ramirez said. "He said if you came back he was going to kill you."

El nodded. He had no problem with dragging Sands from the house. It was Sands' fault that he had gotten involved in this whole mess to begin with. Although, to be fair, it was also Sands who had, however inadvertently, given El his new purpose in life. So he would use force, if he had to, but he wouldn’t necessarily like it. That was the thing they had never understood, any of them, except Carolina. He used violence when he had to, but he had never liked it.

Ramirez led him through the house. They found Sands on the back porch. He was standing at the railing – leaning on it, to be more precise. His head was lowered, but when he heard the jingling approach of El Mariachi, he stiffened and spun around. 

El was not surprised to see the gun in the other man’s hand. Nor was he surprised to find that it was accurately aimed at him. Sands had very good hearing.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Sands waved the gun. "Do you really think I’m going anywhere with you?" He was wearing dark sunglasses, and the sling about his arm was gone, but he was still too pale. 

El knew from experience that gunshot wounds were slow to heal, and annoyingly painful, and the CIA agent looked exactly like someone who was pushing his recovery too hard and too fast. El guessed he wanted to get out of Mexico fast, before the new leaders of the cartel could hunt him down and finish what Barillo had started. Although he would never admit it in a million years, Sands was probably terrified of the cartel. 

_And maybe_ , El thought, _he’s afraid of me._

"You can’t stay here," Ramirez said. "The CIA and the FBI are going to be here any day now. Looking for me, looking for you. A shitstorm went down here, and they’re going to have lots of questions about it."

"Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to have to skip that party," Sands said. He smiled, a quick thinning of his lips. "Now if you gentlemen will excuse me." He took a step forward.

El glanced at Ramirez, and the two men rolled their eyes. El grinned. Even blind and injured, Sands had balls. 

That was good. He would need them in the weeks to come.

"We have to go," he said. "There is lots to do."

Sands let out an incredulous laugh. "What part of, I’m going to kill you, do you not understand?" He jabbed the gun forward, emphasizing his point.

Patience was not El’s strong suit. He had always been an act-first-think-later kind of man. He could stand here all day on this porch and have this argument, or he could get what he had come for. 

He took a deep breath and launched himself forward, ducking low and to the right.

Sands fired. The bullet whined as it plowed into the wooden porch. Ramirez threw himself to the floor.

El never even flinched. He threw out his left arm, intending to grab Sands and the gun all at once. 

And Sands, knowing what he was about to do, pivoted neatly to his left, and let El crash directly into the wooden slats of the porch railing. The posts groaned and creaked as El thudded headfirst into them, but they held. For now.

"I told you," Sands said in that casual tone that was already driving El crazy, "to fuck off." He fired again.

The bullet destroyed two of the wooden slats comprising the railing. El winced as wooden splinters dug into his cheek and neck. With a low growl, he threw himself forward, and this time succeeded in wrapping both arms about Sands.

The CIA agent howled in pain and fury. He brought the gun down on El’s head, and El snarled at the pain. "I guess," he panted, "I will have to drag you after all."

He lunged to his feet, taking his captive with him. With a terrific heave, he turned and threw Sands through the porch railing. The wooden slats shattered, and gave way with a tremendous crash. The drop to the ground below was four feet, and Sands landed with atop the broken wood with a sick thud.

"You killed him," Ramirez said, from the safety of the house.

El shook his head, and winced as pain shot through him from where the gun had connected with his skull. "No," he said. "Not quite."

He leaped off the porch and landed in a crouch. The impact of the fall had made Sands lose his grip on his gun, and it lay innocently in the grass. His sunglasses were askew on his face. When he heard El jump down, he rolled over and began searching among the broken wood for the gun. The sunglasses dangled for a moment from one ear, then fell into the grass.

El just stared at him. He was horrified by the sight of the empty holes where the man’s eyes had been. He had seen many terrible things since he had first taken up his guns, and he had been responsible for many more, but somehow the sight of Sands' blindness touched him in a way all those other atrocities had not. He felt himself feeling sorry for the agent, and wondered where such an emotion had come from.

"Are you coming with me?" he asked. "Or do I have to throw you through a wall next?"

Sands did not respond. He just continued groping among the remains of the railing, trying to find his gun. His breath came in painful gasps, and his hair hung in his face. His head turned from side to side, as though he could somehow will himself to see, if only he tried hard enough.

El retrieved the gun, and tossed it up to Ramirez, who now stood on the porch, looking down at the drama taking place in his backyard.

"Here." El reached down and lifted Sands to his feet.

Sands went wild. He twisted and fought, beating at El with both fists. "Let go of me!" he shouted. "Get off me!" Panic made his voice rise higher. "Let go!" He threw himself backward so fiercely that he tore loose from El’s grip. His momentum carried him back for a few staggering steps, then his knees buckled. He sank to the ground and promptly began searching among the grass again, still trying to find the gun.

El was appalled. Evidently the loss of his eyes had unhinged Sands even more than he had been before. Madness had its uses, but El was suddenly filled with doubt. Maybe Sands wasn’t the right man for this job, after all.

He tried one more time. "Get up." He grabbed Sands by the arms and hauled him upright.  
This time Sands didn’t bother shouting. He just lashed out, making no effort to locate his enemy first. He was close enough that it didn’t matter. His fist caught El square in the chin.

El saw stars. He reeled backward across the grass, but did not let go of Sands.

Sands was too far gone to notice, anyway. "Don’t," he pleaded, and collapsed.

El just stood there, his arms full of unconscious CIA agent.

"Maybe you should let them take him back to the States," Ramirez said from up on the porch. "He belongs in an institution." He paused. "He always did. It’s just more obvious now."

El frowned. Ramirez’s pronouncement, which only days ago he would have been too happy to agree with, felt strangely wrong. Sands was mad, yes, but perhaps not incurably so. And vengeance, as he knew all too well, could mask all kinds of ills, and give them legitimacy. Surely, with enough time, Sands would be just fine.

He looked down at the man collapsed against his chest. He had held no one since the day Carolina and his daughter had died in his arms. A strange feeling of protectiveness washed over him, making him frown. Sands was an amoral killer, but what had happened to him was horrible beyond words. And didn’t every man deserve a second chance? Carolina had given El that chance, and he had lost it. But that didn’t have to happen to everyone. Maybe he was Sands' second chance. 

"He’ll be fine," El said. He shifted his grip on the unconscious agent, and now Sands lay across his arms, the way he had once carried Carolina up the stairs to their bedroom. Sands' head fell back, exposing the line of his throat, mercifully hiding his empty eyesockets from view.

El carried him toward the steps leading up to the porch, and reminded himself to go back for the agent’s sunglasses. Sands would be needing them soon.

*******************

Chapter 4: On the Road

 

"You do know that kidnapping a federal agent is a serious crime, don’t you?""

El said nothing. Only two hours on the road with Sands and he was already seriously debating pushing his passenger out the window. 

Ramirez had stayed behind. "They may have forgotten me," he had said, "but not for long. Sooner or later the FBI’s going to come calling. And I don’t intend to be here when that happens." 

"Where will you go?" El had asked him. He had an idea a man like Ramirez would come in handy later, and he wanted to be able to find the former agent again. 

"No se," Ramirez had said with a shrug. He had wanted to go with El, the desire had been in his eyes, but for some reason he had denied himself. El was sorry to see it. He would have welcomed Ramirez, if the man had volunteered his services. 

Sands, on the other hand. . . 

The CIA agent had done everything in his power to prevent El from taking him out of Ramirez’s house. In the end El had been forced to knock him unconscious and bodily haul him out the front door, but not before Sands had gotten in a few good licks. One of El’s eyes was already bruising, and the bite on his hand was painful and didn’t want to stop bleeding. 

"You’ll spend the rest of your life in jail, mister. And not the good kind of jail, where you get HBO and a Bowflex in the gym. The kind of jail where you’re someone’s bitch within ten minutes of entering the place."

El pursed his lips. Ever since leaving Ramirez’s place, it had been like this. The FBI agent’s house had still been visible in the rearview mirror when Sands had attacked him, clouting him a good one on the head and yanking on the steering wheel, sending them into a ditch on the side of the road. After he had gotten the car back up on the road, El had refrained with difficulty from killing Sands, and settled for handcuffing him to the door handle. 

Since then, Sands had seemed content to sit still, and just talk El to death. He was too pale and still in obvious pain, but he was not letting that stop him. El respected that stubborn determination, but it was damn hard to be the focus of it. 

"Did you know," he said, "that I killed my own brother?" 

El could have sworn Sands rolled his eyes, eyes he didn’t have anymore. "Yes, as a matter of fact you did tell me that fascinating piece of information."

"Did you know," he said, "why I did it?" 

"Well, let me guess," Sands drawled. "Probably something to do with a beautiful, lethal woman, right? The kind who fucks like a whore but who moves like a duchess. There’s always one of those in stories like this."

All he had left of Carolina was her memory. Hearing someone talk that way about her made El’s blood boil. Before he was even aware that he was going to do it, his arm flew out and smashed Sands in the face. 

Sands’ head rocked to the side and connected with the window. His sunglasses slipped, revealing one empty eyesocket. Blood dripped from his nose. 

"Shit," El muttered. 

Sands bent his head so his cuffed hands could reach his face, and pushed his sunglasses back into place. "If you ever touch me again," he said quietly, "I’ll kill you."

"Yeah, yeah," El said. Death threats meant nothing to him anymore, he had been hearing them so long. Nonetheless, a small voice spoke up in his mind and told him he ought to be careful. Sands was a killer. A good killer. And blind, he was a very good killer.

But there was more to the man than that, El knew. After leaving Ramirez’s house, they had driven through the village. Life had returned to normal in the town, and El had been pleased to see it. The windows were down, and a hot breeze circulated in the car, doing little to cool down its occupants. Sands had been sullenly quiet, but then he had abruptly sat up. "Stop! Stop the car."

Too surprised not to comply, El had slammed on the brakes. "What is it?"

Then he had seen. A kid in a dirty yellow T-shirt, riding a bike with a jangling bell. Somehow Sands had heard that bell, and now he was looking in the direction of the kid, who was pedaling eagerly toward the car. 

El shook his head. The CIA agent had damn good hearing, there was no doubt about it. 

The kid had approached the car, his face alight. "You’re better!" he had exclaimed happily in Spanish. "Where are you going?"

"Well, that’s up to Mister El here," Sands had said. He clearly understood the language, even if he refused to speak it himself. "Have you been staying at home, like I told you?"

The kid had given El a quick glance, and in his grin El had seen the truth. "Si, senor," the boy had said however, and El had smiled himself, to see the kid’s lie. 

"Good kid," Sands had said distantly. "You run along now. Stay out of trouble." 

The kid had flashed his grin again. "Si, senor." But instead of riding off he had just continued to sit on his bike, staring at Sands with adoration. 

El didn’t like that look. He had cleared his throat, and Sands jumped. "Go on, get out of here!" Before, he had sounded a bit like an indulgent uncle, maybe. Now he just sounded pissed. 

The kid had taken off, but not before El had seen one thing. The boy would follow Sands wherever he went, so long as the CIA agent let him. 

El wasn’t sure what he felt about that. He knew how the kid had gotten involved, had heard the story from Ramirez who had heard it from the kid himself. Sands claimed to remember very little of what had happened after being blinded, and the subsequent gunfight. Evidently, though, he remembered the kid, and that little thing made El feel a bit more kindly inclined toward him. 

Now, however. . . El sighed. "I didn’t mean to hit you," he said. 

"Just shut up," Sands said wearily. He leaned his forehead against the window. His hair hid his expression. "Where are you taking me?"

El did not reply. In truth he had no idea where he was going. There was a certain beauty to being spontaneous, but he would need a plan if he was truly going to take on a drug cartel. So first he needed information. Barillo had ruled Culiacan for years, but by now someone would have risen to take his place. He would sniff around, find out where the cartel had relocated, who its new leader was.

Sands, however, didn’t need to know any of that. In fact, El rather liked the idea of keeping the man ignorant. Call it poetic justice, that the person formerly responsible for pulling all the strings was now powerless to control even his own fate.

He glanced over at Sands, then back at the road. He turned the steering wheel a little to the left, and the car jolted over a crumbling pothole. Sands’ head thumped against the window, and he sat up with a wince. "Fucker," he muttered.

El didn’t bother trying to hide his smile. It wasn’t like Sands could see him, anyway. "What does that mean?" he asked, gesturing to the man’s cuffed hands. "This three, on your hand."

The tattoo intrigued him. He had seen a variety of them throughout the years, notably on the man Bucho had sent to kill him, but the simple number made him curious. It could mean anything.

"The first time I killed a man," Sands said.

El chuckled in disbelief. "What, you were three years old?"

"There were three of them," Sands said, his voice heavy with scorn.

El waited, but Sands did not continue the story. "Well? Aren’t you going to tell me about it?" When Sands still did not speak, he said, "You might as well tell me. The trip is long, and the radio does not work."

Sands sighed, and again El got the impression of a non-existent eye roll. "Fine." He sat up a little straighter, as much as the cuffs would allow. "There were three of them. They jumped me, made it look like a regular mugging."

"They weren’t ‘regular’?" El asked.

"No, fuckmook," Sands sing-songed. "CIA, remember? They were low-level goons, a bunch of nobodies hired by this guy I was shadowing, to get me out of the picture. They jumped me, they had knives, I had a gun, the end."

"And so you got a tattoo, to commemorate the occasion?" El asked. He shook his head. It was sick, but it could have been worse, he supposed. He had known men who wore necklaces comprised of teeth taken from their victims’ jaws.

"Well they don’t exactly make Hallmark cards that congratulate you on your first kill," Sands said. He slid down a little in his seat, his face tight with pain. Between his still-healing eyes, the jolt on the window, and El’s blow, he probably had one hell of a headache. El felt another one of those traitorous pangs of sympathy, and stomped on it viciously.

One confidence deserved another, El thought. And the road before them was long. They might as well get to know each other. They would be spending a lot of time together in the weeks to come.

He cleared his throat. "I killed my brother," he said. "You know this, but I am going to tell you the true story. Now you will hear what really happened."

"Oh gosh, I can’t wait," Sands said. 

El drew a deep breath. A story, he had said. "Once upon a time in Mexico, there were two brothers. One of them was called Cesar. . ."

****************** 

Chapter 5: Restoring the Balance

 

Other agents would have made a fuss at being posted to a godforsaken place like Mexico. Sands had just accepted the transfer with a smile. 

In Mexico, he would finally be in control. The country was just begging for someone like him to come in and create order out of chaos, balance out of extremity. Here was his chance to put his talent for manipulation into play. 

Everyone had said he was brilliant at what he did. He could get into anyone’s head, find out what made them tick, and then use that information for his own purposes. His teachers at the academy had said that if he had joined the FBI, he would have been a profiler, using his talent to get into a serial killer’s head so others could catch the bastard. This had appealed to him immensely, and for about a week he had almost regretted his decision to join the CIA. But then reason had reasserted itself. Reading about other people’s sick, twisted acts was fun, but not as much fun as being the one to pull the strings and commit said sick, twisted acts. 

Once he had realized that, there had been no regrets. He had never doubted he would graduate, become a field agent. After all, the biggest stumbling block – the psych evaluation – had already come and gone. 

That one had given him pause. For a few days he had been forced to be very careful. He couldn’t let his secret out. He was borderline psychotic and he knew it. But so what? Who cared? He was going to serve his country, walk his beat, restore the balance. Maybe a man had to be a little unbalanced himself to do all those things and stay sane. 

The car jolted over another pothole, and Sands grimaced. They had been driving for hours, and the sun beating through the windshield was merciless. Beside him, El was silent, giving away nothing. 

Sands would have died before admitting it, but he was afraid. He thought El’s story of taking on the cartel was just so much bullshit. El was going to the cartel, all right, but to turn him in, collect the bounty that surely had to be on his head. _Here_ , El would say, _he’s the one who caused all this. Now you can finish what Barillo started. Why don’t you take his balls next? I’ll just stand here and watch._

Well, maybe not. But it was what _he_ would say, if the roles were reversed. Still, he couldn’t be sure. El was liable to do anything, and the thought made him feel cold all over. The CIA trained its agents to cope with torture, but Sands was here to say that the CIA knew fuck-all about real pain. 

The car was slowing, and he heard the click of a turn signal. “Gasolina,” El muttered. 

Sands sat up a little, trying not to look like he was handcuffed to the door. “Get me something to drink, will you?” he asked, forcing the words out, hoping he sounded casual. 

El mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a refusal. Sands clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, to keep from snapping at the man. Normally he would not have bothered, but he was hardly in a position to fight back, should El choose to attack. 

Besides, his head hurt like hell. As the driver’s side door slammed shut, Sands winced. Ramirez had had some wonderful painkillers, but those were long gone, back at the house with the retired FBI agent. 

He heard the gas cap open, then the sounds of the pump working. They were coming from the driver’s side of the car. Sands let himself slide down a little in his seat, turned his head so El could not see him, and uttered a thin keening noise. The sound had been building in his throat for nearly an hour, rising along with the pain, until the combined effect of both was nearly unbearable. He wanted to clutch his head and curl up and scream and die. 

Maybe, he thought, with a bitter laugh, he should just ask El to shoot him now. Take him to the side of the road and put him out of his misery. It would be the simplest solution, the easiest for everyone involved. He wouldn’t even fight. Much.

Then the survival instinct reared its head again, telling him no way, no way was he ever going to beg. If he had ever been going to let this whole fuck-up kill him, he would have done it when Ajedrez found him bleeding on the street and pressed the barrel of her gun under his chin. That was the moment he could have given it all in. But he hadn’t. And he would be damned if he gave in now.

El finished with the gas pump and walked away, the chains on his pants jingling merrily. Sands slid a little further in the seat and let his forehead rest on the window. The pain in his head was unreal. It was stupid that two things that didn’t even exist anymore could scream so loudly, but that didn’t stop his eyes from hollering at him, begging him to acknowledge them. 

He wondered vaguely what had happened to them. Were they in a jar somewhere? A keepsake for the new leader of the cartel? Something to show, perhaps, to people as a threat. A warning. _Look carefully. This is what happens to those who cross us._

He heard El returning, and he sat up, ignoring the bolt of pain that crossed his skull. No matter what, he refused to let El know how badly he was hurting. That was just not an option.

El got in the car and started the engine. Sands heard the sound of a bottle cap being opened, and against his will he felt himself leaning to the left, yearning for that bottle. He was so thirsty it hurt to swallow.

El drank, capped the bottle, put the car in reverse. They backed out of the gas station and got back on the road. Sands counted to twenty, then again, and finally snapped. “Give me that.”

“You didn’t pay for it,” El said absently. 

Sands was about to shout at the man when something heavy and cylindrical landed in his lap, reminding him painfully that he had also been shot in the thigh not too long ago. He fumbled to reach the bottle with his cuffed hands, and had to lower his head in order to drink.

The liquid was warm, flat soda. Sands didn’t care. At this point anything would do. He drank deeply, then the bottle was torn from his grasp. “You have to share,” El said, in a voice he might have used on a small child.

“Oh, fuck you,” Sands sighed. He wiped his mouth and sat back. He tugged ineffectively on the handcuffs, more for something to do than out of any hope that he could free himself. When the cuffs showed no sign of giving, he sighed and rested his aching head on the window.

All right then. It was time to take stock. Assess the situation. Figure out his next plan of action.

What he really hoped for was time. Because all he needed was one chance. Just one. He had already realized that El was shockingly complacent for a man who had supposedly been hunted for years by the most vicious drug cartel in all of Mexico. It wouldn’t take much to get the upper hand against a man like that. All he needed was that one chance, that opportune moment.

“How long are you going to keep me tied up like this?” he asked, testing his theory.

“That depends,” El said, “on how long you are going to keep fighting me.”

Sands hid his smile. It was too easy. Men like El were all the same. They fought hard and dirty, but only when forced to. All he had to do was feign surrender, and El would stop treating him like shit, and then he would have his chance.

“Are you going to tell me where you’re taking me?” he asked.

Metal jingled as El shifted in his seat. He did not say anything.

 _He doesn’t know_ , Sands thought suddenly. This cheered him immensely. Maybe El wasn’t taking him to the cartel, after all. He began to relax.

Immediately a voice in his head started squalling. _No! Don’t you dare!_

He stiffened. No. The voice was right. He dared not trust El, not even the slightest imaginable smidgen of trust. The last time he had trusted someone, he had wound up strapped to a table while some sadistic doctor ripped his eyes out. 

Never again.

Sands curled his hands into fists to still their trembling. He had lied, of course, to Ramirez. He remembered everything.

Ajedrez, that beautiful bitch. Oh how he wished he had killed her more slowly. Her goon had stuck that needle in his neck, and she had just sat there the whole time, smiling. He hadn’t even bothered trying to fight; the effects of the drug had come on him too quick. There had just been time to look her in the eye and promise to kill her, and then the world had dissolved into black.

Funny how the world worked. He had told the kid on the bike that he never wanted to see him again. Guess he had gotten his wish. And if he had known that afternoon that those were the last hours he was ever going to walk and talk and see and be normal, he sure as hell wouldn’t have gone into that little cantina. He would have done something memorable, like watch the sunrise, or shoot someone just to watch them bleed to death.

Never, never in all his life, even if through some miracle he lived to next June and reached the ripe old age of forty-one, would he ever forget their laughter when they had let him up off that table. Reeling with drugs and pain, he had stumbled from one pair of hands to another as they had pushed him toward the door, laughing at him and the blood streaming from the holes where his eyes had been. Someone had shoved his sunglasses onto his face, and he had screamed and fallen. Someone else had hauled him upright and given him a good shove, right through the door.

And the sickening thing was that he couldn’t stop thinking of it, reliving it. The horror was just too close. He had come dangerously close to losing it for good this morning, after El had tossed him through Ramirez’s porch. The mariachi had grabbed him and in that instant all reason had fled. He had panicked, suddenly thrust back into that room, feeling their hands as they held him down…

Sands shuddered. Barillo’s men had let him go purely for the sport of it. They had expected him to stagger out into the street and either get creamed by a car, or else picked off at their leisure by the goon waiting on the sidewalk.

He wasn’t supposed to have lived. And his only hope, the only weapon he had in the coming battle against the cartel – if indeed that was El’s intention -- was that they didn’t know this. Things had been chaotic on that day. It was entirely possible that they believed he had died.

He fervently hoped so.

That still, however, left the problem of what to do about El. Even supposing he could overpower the man and kill him, he had no idea where he was, or how to get back to civilization. He couldn’t drive the car and they had been on the road for hours – there was no way he could walk the distance. He’d probably end up falling down a ravine anyway, with his luck.

With a sinking sensation, Sands realized he was completely in El Mariachi’s power. 

_Okay_ , he told himself. _Okay, okay. Don’t freak out. Just. Stay. Calm._

Stay calm. It was good advice. He would have to remember it. He would be quiet and still. Let El think he had given in. Sooner or later the man would let down his guard, and the instant that happened, Sands was going to kill him.

He would deal with the consequences later. He had survived this long. He would continue to survive.

Besides, who knew what lay ahead? In the next town they came to, there might be a kid. Maybe even a kind-hearted little boy with a bike who he could take advantage of.

****************

Chapter 6: In Which War Breaks Out, and a Truce is Declared

 

El didn’t like going in circles. And for days now, that was all he had been doing. Driving in circles all day on the same dusty roads, leaving dusty small towns just to come back at night and check into the same dusty motels. For every two days they spent on the road, only one actually involved any progress. The other was spent pretending to move forward.

He wasn’t quite sure why he had fallen into such an elaborate deception. It had started from a sly desire to keep Sands ignorant of their location, but somehow, somewhere along the way, that initial motivation had disappeared. By now, El realized, the sad truth was that he was driving in circles in order to buy time -- and he didn’t even know why. 

Time for Sands to heal, he supposed. Time for himself. Time for the cartel to regroup under new leadership. Time for the new hunt to begin, for himself to become the hunted yet again. 

He should have done it right away, he saw that now. The day after the botched coup, the day after everything had fallen apart. He should have taken Lorenzo and Fideo and gone after the remains of the cartel with everything he had. Smashed them before they could reform. 

Instead he had let his own basically romantic nature intervene, and so now here he was, hundreds of miles from anyplace familiar, and his only companion was a blind CIA agent who hated him only slightly less than he hated himself. 

El sighed as he pulled the car into the parking lot. The same town, the same motel as yesterday. They were making their way southeast, into the heart of Mexico, but with excruciating slowness. It had been almost two weeks since they had left Ramirez’s. 

El went to check in and when the woman at the desk recognized him, he gave the old abuela such a dark glower that she crossed herself and practically threw the key at him. He wondered what kind of talk was following them, these mysterious men who stayed in the same place twice, and who went into dirty bars to ask questions about the old Barillo cartel. Sooner or later word was going to reach the right ears, and then things would start to get interesting.

He crossed the dusty parking lot, back to the car. Sands was leaning against the passenger door, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. El slowed down, taking advantage of the fact that Sands couldn’t see him, and just stared. 

Two weeks on the road had restored Sands’ wiry strength, his wry humor. He still walked with a limp, but even that was fading. The pain from his missing eyes was receding too; he could turn his head to catch a sound and not wince anymore. Dressed in black, instead of a stupid T-shirt and a big hat, he looked exactly as dangerous as he was.

"Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to unlock the door?" 

El shook his head. The jingling accessories on his outfit notwithstanding, he had no doubt that Sands had always known where he was, from the moment he had stepped out of the motel lobby. The man’s hearing was that good. 

Across town, the church bells rang. El unlocked the door to the motel and shoved it open. As he went back to the car to take the beaten bags and his guitar case from the trunk, Sands crushed his cigarette under his heel and made his way toward the door, one hand held in front of him. He stumbled on the curb and cursed and nearly fell, but managed to stay upright. 

El nodded to himself. Lorenzo had said he was crazy when he had outlined his plan, but Lorenzo could not see Sands. Lorenzo, if he had been the one blinded, would have fallen prey to the cartel within five minutes of being set loose on the street.

He tossed the bags over his shoulder, slammed the trunk shut, picked up the guitar case with his free hand, and walked toward the door. 

The instant he set foot inside the motel room he knew something was wrong. He dropped the guitar case and started to turn, but Sands was on him before he could even begin to bring his free arm up in self-defense. A sharp blow on his jaw sent him reeling, and a fist clubbed him on the back of the neck, sending him to his knees. 

Then the assault stopped, as quickly as it had begun. Sands backed away, until he stood with the back of one knee touching the sagging bed in the middle of the room. In his right hand he held El’s pistol, the one El had been carrying at his hip ever since leaving Ramirez’s. 

"Fuck," El swore.

The single word dropped into the silence. Sands corrected his aim, using the sound to judge where El knelt on the hideously patterned carpet. 

"What are you going to do? Shoot me?" he asked. 

"Well, that is the question, isn’t it?" Sands said. "How’s this? I’ve got another question for you. How stupid do you think I am?"

El shook his head. He touched his jaw gingerly and winced. "I do not think you are stupid."

"No? Because it sure seems that way to me. And let me tell you something, _friend_. I might be blind, but I am _not_ stupid. Did you think I wouldn’t know we were in the same town?"

The fucking church bells. That was how Sands had known. El bit back a heavy sigh. "What do you want me to say?" He heaved himself to his feet. 

Sands pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the floor right where El’s left knee had been. "Get back down."

El did as he was told, but not before sliding forward and to the left a little. Now the gun, which had been pointing at his head, was aimed at the wall behind him, just over his shoulder. 

"Where are you taking me?" Sands said. "I have tried asking you nicely, but you won’t tell me. Now I want some answers, and I am not going to let you get up until I have them." He sounded like he was ordering a beer in a bar, perfectly calm and natural.

Slowly, slowly, El lifted one knee from the carpet and prepared to slide forward again. For the first time it struck him that the chains on his pants would always give him away. As long as he wore them, he would never be able to hide from Sands. 

"Let me ask you a question," he said. "Where would you go, if I was not stopping you?"  
Sands seemed to consider the question. Although it was hard to tell. The sunglasses hid much of his face, and El had only the set of the man’s mouth to go by. 

"Puerto Vallarta," Sands finally said. "Nice people, nice bars. Excellent pork, although not good enough to shoot the cook over. Beautiful countryside." He stopped, and his jaw clenched. He gave El that smile that was nothing more than a quick thinning of his lips. "Well, at least I’ve got the memories, right?" 

The gun never wavered. El laid his knee down and prepared to move the left one. He leaned back, so his voice would continue to come from the spot Sands thought he was in. "I have never been there."

"All the more reason for me to go, then," Sands said. His voice remained light, conversational. "And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. Move again, and you’re dead."

El froze. He glanced about the motel room, noting the bed with its pronounced arc in the middle, the cheap lamp on the table beside the bed, the position of the phone. He thought of his guitar case laying behind him, and knew he would never have enough time to open it and remove his own weapons. Sands would gun him down before he even got close.

There was no other choice. El nodded, although he knew Sands couldn’t see him. "Okay then," he said. 

He leapt forward, staying as low as he could. The first bullet parted the hair on his head, and the second whined just over his shoulder. Then he had hold of Sands, and they were both falling backward onto the bed. 

Sands tried to bring the gun around again, and El seized his wrist and twisted as hard as he could. He half-expected to hear the snap of bone, but Sands had the sense to let go of the gun before that could happen. El released his wrist, and instead of cradling the injured limb, as most men would have done, Sands socked him in the eye. 

El fell backward off the bed into a heap. The side of his face flamed with pain. He rolled to his feet, trying to shake off the hurt. He saw the gun on the carpet, saw Sands’ groping hands reach for it, and kicked the firearm away. It skidded across the carpet and fetched up against the wall beside the door, which was still standing open. 

Without thinking, he stomped down on Sands’ fingers. This time he did hear the brittle sounds of breaking bone. The CIA agent shouted with pain, then with his other hand he grabbed El’s ankle and pulled. Off-balance, El toppled over and landed heavily on his back. 

All the breath whooshed out of his lungs. He couldn’t move. He just lay there, gasping stupidly for air. He could hear Sands panting, cursing, and he knew he had to get up and prevent the man from getting the gun, but his body refused to obey him. 

_Get up_ , a voice urged in his mind. _You have to get up. Now!_

He knew that voice. It was Carolina’s voice. 

El rolled onto his side, and from there onto his knees. His lungs finally cooperated and allowed him to draw in a single, burning breath. He gripped the side of the bed and used it to push himself to his feet. He turned toward the open door and the gun, thinking he would have to act fast to beat Sands to the weapon, and then he stopped, because Sands was not there. 

He turned around. The CIA agent was crawling on his hands and knees, ignoring his broken fingers. He had his shoulder against the wall, using it to guide him forward. Except Sands had gotten turned around in the melee, and instead of heading for the door, he was only going further into the room. And in another step, he was going to realize it himself. 

The thud as Sands’ head struck the wall made El wince. Sands stopped and raised his hand and immediately found the corner he had crawled into. He splayed his fingers on the wall. For a moment he just knelt there. Then he lowered his forehead to the carpet in defeat, his hand still touching the wall. A soft sound escaped him. 

El felt a strange tug in his chest, and knew it to be pity. _I’m sorry_ , he wanted to say, but that was ridiculous, because it was Sands who had created this mess, and it was Sands’ own fault that he was moaning on the floor in the corner of a strange motel room. 

But El still felt sorry for him. And he remembered that he had thought he was meant to be Sands’ second chance, and suddenly all the lies of the past two weeks seemed petty and mean. 

He started forward, and Sands froze. In a flash the CIA agent turned so his back was pressed into the corner. His injured hand was close to his chest, the other held out in a gesture of forbidding. He looked ready to spring at a moment’s notice, ready to fight to the death.

El was not interested in fighting. He sat on the bed and clasped his hands in his lap. His right eye was slowly swelling shut, and he could feel a lump forming on his jaw. "Mexico City," he said. "I have contacts there. We need information if we are to take on the cartel." 

Sands let his head fall back against the wall. "Why?" he asked. The bored nonchalance was gone; he sounded genuinely confused. "Why do you want me with you? Is this your idea of revenge? Or is it a twisted joke, sending the blind man to face the evil drug cartel?" 

"No," El said. He shook his head. "I want you with me because you are a gunfighter." He stood up and got no pleasure from seeing Sands flinch. He was through fighting. He was tired of having to be on his guard all the time around this man. If they were going to defeat the cartel, they were going to have to work together. Starting now.

He crossed the room and retrieved the gun from the floor. He shut the door and attached the security chain. He drew the curtains and moved his guitar case atop the plastic table beside the tiny TV. The housekeeping done, he went back to the bed and sat down again.

Sands had regained his composure. Although he still sat in the corner, it was obvious that he was there by his choice now. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. 

"Why don’t you want to?" El asked back. "The cartels are full of dangerous men. They corrupt the youth of this country. They took your eyes. Can you really tell me you don’t want to get back at them? Vengeance is not always a bad thing, Agent Sands." 

"Bullshit," Sands said. 

El felt like he had been slapped. "What?"

"This isn’t vengeance. You only think it is. Destroying the cartels won’t give me my sight back. It won’t bring your Carolina back, or your daughter." 

El dropped his head. Everything was black for Sands now, but he had seen right through El, effortlessly. And despite himself, El had to admit that Sands was brilliant at what he did. No wonder he had virtually run all of Mexico from his cell phone.

Sands looked right at El, the dark sunglasses giving him an unnerving, penetrating stare. "So now tell me the truth. Why are you doing this?"

El pursed his lips. He hated those sunglasses. From the moment he had met the man, he had realized that Sands had an uncanny ability to see right through people, but at least when he had been sighted, his intense stare had been easier to take. Now, with those blank sunglasses, it was almost impossible to look at him for any length of time. 

Still, the question hung in the air between them. He could lie, or make up a story, but he lacked the heart to do such a thing. He was tired, more tired than he could ever remember being before. Tired of running, of hunting, of playing the game. Once upon a time he had tried to settle down, and live a normal life with Carolina, but God had decided that this kind of life was not for him. God had apparently decided that his life was meant to consist of strange hotel rooms and dusty towns and guns. Lots of guns.

And he could accept that -- he could -- although it was hard. But it was an acceptance built on his own terms. If he was going to have to live that kind of life, he was taking Sands with him, and nothing the other man said or did was going to change that.

"Because," he said, "I have nothing else in my life. So I will take my meaning where I can, and hope it is enough." 

Sands was silent for a long time. Maybe he too was finally coming to realize that sometimes the stakes were too high, and the consequences too dear – that sometimes the game just wasn’t worth it. He nodded. "All right," he said. "I can accept that." 

"And you?" asked El. 

The corner of Sands’ mouth quirked. "Well," he drawled, "someone has to be sure there is balance in this country. Right now that means erasing one powerful drug cartel from the face of this earth and giving the others a chance." He paused, and when he spoke again, he sounded a little less cynical, a little more sincere. "In other words, El, like you, I will take my meaning wherever I can find it." 

El looked at him thoughtfully. He probed the sore spot on his jaw with his fingers. Then he stood up and walked over to the guitar case on the table. He opened it, opened the guitar resting within, and pulled out a small pistol. "Take this." He walked over to Sands and held out the gun. 

Sands reached up, and El moved the gun so he could find it. When the CIA agent’s fingers touched the barrel, he grabbed it quickly and snatched it back, as though he expected El to pull it out of his reach and taunt him. "This is mine," he said. 

"I know," El said. 

Sands held the gun loosely, one finger curled about the trigger. He did not bother to check if it was loaded. "Aren’t you afraid I’m going to shoot you?" 

El stood up and turned around, presenting his back to Sands. "No," he said. 

He walked over to the door and picked up his worn bag. He unzipped it, and began rummaging through the items within. 

Outside, the church bells rang. 

****************** 

Chapter 7: Sands in Action

 

Word was getting out, and the Escalante cartel, formerly known as the Barillo cartel, was nervous. Two men were out there asking questions about them, getting closer with every week. And the cartel -- especially its new leader, Ramon Escalante -- was not happy.

The men who had survived the botched coup talked among themselves. It was El Mariachi, they said. It had to be. He had walked out of El Presidente’s compound alive and unharmed, and for that costly error, men had died, so that everyone knew how important a threat Escalante considered him. He was still out there, and he was coming for them.

His companion, however, was a mystery. El’s woman was dead, and none of the legends mentioned him working with anyone else. In the absence of fact, rumors ran wild. Some said another mariachi had joined the cause, taller and stronger than El, with a guitar case that hid a rocket-launcher. Others said the stranger was El Mariachi’s younger brother, being initiated into the life of murder and revenge. Still others said he was a shaman from one of the mountain tribes, who had visions that directed him and El to the location of the cartel. No one knew who he was, and everyone was afraid of him.

Sands, had he known this, would have been pleased.

****

El slouched a little lower in his chair and sipped at his beer. The bar was loud and ugly, much like its patrons. He had been in dozens of them through the years, and although the name over the door changed, they were all the same. He was sitting in the corner, glowering at men and women alike if they dared to approach. He was on his third beer, but the drink was so watered down he scarcely felt any effects from the alcohol. 

At the bar, Sands was talking to a former associate of Barillo’s. 

The man was short and thin. He had been on the fringe of the cartel, drawn there by Ajedrez, who had recruited him because he was good with explosives. He had tried to woo the lady, but she had rejected him so cruelly he had been startled back to reality. Working for a drug cartel, he had suddenly realized, was not as fun or glamorous as he had thought it might be. Before anyone could discover his cold feet, he had quietly packed up his things and fled.

It had taken two weeks to track down the man, and El wasn’t even sure how much information he would be able to provide, but Sands had insisted. Privately El thought the CIA agent just wanted to talk to someone about Ajedrez, but he kept his suspicions to himself.

The man at the bar had said his name was Miguel. He held a beer in one hand, and the other was behind his back, his thumb hooked through his belt loop. He was nodding, agreeing with something Sands had just said.

They were making progress, El thought. In the month that had passed since their tentative truce in the hotel room, they had gained a lot of ground. Every person they talked to was a little more sullen; every town they entered was a little less welcoming. The cartel knew they were out there, but not where, and they were nervous.

He started to wave to the bartender so he could get another beer, then froze. Their latest informant, Miguel, had just waved the fingers of the hand at his back.

And from the left end of the bar, behind Sands, two men got to their feet and began making their way forward.

El put his glass down and sat up a bit straighter. The gun nestled in the small of his back suddenly took on weight, reminding him that it was there, ready for him if he needed it.  
He doubted he would.

Sands was leaning on the bar, his left arm resting on its scarred surface. The dark sunglasses effectively hid his expression, but more importantly, they protected his secret. He held a dirty beer glass in his right hand, and as the two thugs drew nearer, he raised the glass as if to drink.

Miguel was good, El had to give him credit. He never once looked over Sands’ shoulder to the approaching men, which would have given them all away. As it turned out, he need not have bothered. It was, as Sands said later, something in his voice. Just one off-note, maybe. But it was enough.

The thugs were only a foot away now. One had a snub-nosed pistol. The other had pulled a thick leather strop. 

Miguel stopped talking. Sands took a sip of his beer. The thug with the strop raised his makeshift weapon.

With a quick flick of his wrist, Sands tossed the contents of the glass over his shoulder, directly into the face of the man with the pistol.

The thug bellowed as the warm liquid splashed into his eyes. It was the only sound he made, and it was the only one Sands needed to hear. The CIA agent spun on his heel and smashed the glass against the thug’s face. A split second later he had pulled his gun and shot the man right between the eyes.

All activity in the bar came to a halt.

Miguel turned to run, and El had his only hesitation of the night. He could let Miguel go, and blow his cover, or he could chase after the man. After a moment’s debate, he stayed right where he was. Miguel darted out of the bar, into the night.

The man with the strop had gotten wet from the beer, but he had been far enough back to avoid any of the smashing glass. Now he bared his teeth and swung the leather at Sands, intending to knock the gun out of the CIA agent’s hand.

The whistling noise the leather made as it moved through the air gave Sands just enough warning. He dropped down low and fired at the same time. The thug staggered backwards, clutching at his torn-open throat as blood poured from the wound. He tripped over a bar stool and fell heavily to the floor.

Sands stayed in a crouch, his head cocked, listening hard for any more assailants. 

Someone at the bar motioned to the bartender. A woman in the back laughed out loud, and just like that, the place came back to life. Several of the men gave Sands an uneasy look, but no one even made a funny gesture toward him. They were taking no chances, completely unaware that the man they were afraid of couldn’t even see them.

Sands stood up and put his gun away. He reached into his pocket and slapped some money onto the bar counter.

El drained his glass and walked up to him. "Did you get what you wanted?" he asked.

Sands grinned. "Oh yeah."

****

Later, as they walked back to their hotel, El asked, "What did he say?"

There were no sidewalks, so they walked in the street. El matched his pace to Sands’, and let his footsteps and the jangling of the chains on his pants guide the blind agent. Once, in a dusty town he could not remember the name of, he had taken hold of Sands’ arm in order to lead the man around a pothole, and Sands had whirled on him and laid him out with one solid punch. "Don’t ever touch me," Sands had said, as El had stared up at him in shock from his back.

Just for that El had let him walk right into a streetlamp. The next day they had had matching bruises.

"About the cartel? Nothing," Sands said. "He wasn’t privy to much, and we all know Barillo played things close to the vest. Anything he does know is probably no good by now, anyway."

El nodded. Escalante would have moved the cartel’s operations after taking over. Now anyone who could finger them from Barillo’s time would have to find them first.

And that was proving to be the hardest part. El shook his head, and for the thousandth time admitted that he should have gone after the cartel immediately after the attempted coup. He could have struck then, swiftly and decisively, and destroyed them for good. Instead he had waited. 

And he still didn’t know why.

"But," Sands said, "I did learn some interesting things about my dear friend Ajedrez." His voice had dipped into that bored drawl again. El had come to learn that when Sands talked like that, he was actually excited about something.

"What did you hear? Left," El said.

Without missing a beat, without reaching out to feel for the unseen obstacle, Sands stepped smoothly to the left, out of the path of the No Parking sign that had been right in his path. 

"It would seem Agent Ajedrez had her own hideaway. Near Caimanero."

El frowned. "How is that important?"

"The house was owned by the cartel. Even with the dear Agent Ajedrez’s passing, the cartel still owns it." Sands gave El a mirthless smile. "Someone has to still live there. Someone connected with the cartel."

So Miguel had proved useful after all. El nodded. "Good."

They reached an intersection. Before El could say anything to him, Sands turned right and began walking down the new street, a mean lane that ran between two blocks of ugly industrial buildings.

El stopped dead in his tracks. "How did you know to turn?" he demanded. He looked at Sands, and then at the intersection, which was unremarkable. "How did you do that?"

Sands continued walking on, paying no attention to El. 

El stared. There was nothing at all different about the intersection, nothing to set it apart from the three others they had already passed as they walked back to the hotel. "Wait!" He broke into a trot and caught up to Sands. He started to reach out and take hold of the man’s sleeve, and stopped himself at the last moment. "Stop."

Sands stopped. A frown of annoyance tightened his mouth. "What?"

"Tell me how you did that. How did you know to turn there?" El demanded. He felt almost giddy, and could not say why.

"Why ruin the mystery?" Sands quipped, and started forward again.

"No." This time El did grab the agent’s arm. "Tell me first."

Sands did not look down at the hand on his arm. Already he was leaving behind the gestures and habits of a sighted man. "Let go of me," he said, his voice carefully controlled.

A long moment passed while El wondered what would happen if he did not. Beneath his fingers, he could feel Sands trembling, and he knew the man was a heartbeat away from striking out at him. 

He released the agent’s arm. "Tell me."

"I counted, all right?" Sands said, his voice heavy with self-mockery. "I counted the steps from the hotel to the intersection, and from the intersection to the bar. Savvy?"

"You counted," El repeated. He shook his head. "Jesus."

"Well, I don’t think even I can walk on water," Sands said lightly. "Now, if you’ll excuse me." He started forward again, heading up the street toward the hotel.

El watched him. _All right_ , he thought. _It can’t be that hard._

He closed his eyes and began walking.

And he was right. It wasn’t hard. For the first few steps. After that, doubts began to set in. Was he walking crooked? Would he end up facefirst against the factory wall to his right? How close was the streetlamp he had seen up the road?

It became harder and harder to put each foot forward. His mouth tightened into a grim line. Sweat broke out on his brow. A car drove past on the left, spraying him with its headlights, and he cringed back, throwing up an arm in self-defense, although the vehicle never came close to hitting him.

His right hand rose in the air, wanting to scout out the territory ahead of him. Angrily he forced it back to his side.

Four steps later he came to a halt. The darkness behind his closed eyelids was too absolute. He could not go on. He was too afraid.

He opened his eyes. 

Sands was leaning against the building to the right, just ahead of where El stood. He had one foot propped up on the stone behind him, and was lighting a cigarette. "How’d you like it?" he asked.

"Like what?" El asked. 

"Being blind." Sands threw his match into the dust on the street, pushed himself off the building, and started walking toward the hotel.

After a little while, El followed him.

*****************

Chapter 8: The Drug House

 

The house Ajedrez had lived in was situated twenty miles outside Caimanero, less than an hour away from the small town where it had all begun. 

The house itself was a monstrosity. All pinkish-gray stone and solid glass walls, it looked like a house a drug lord would give to his daughter. El scowled. It pissed him off that Barillo would stoop to such cliché. 

"What is it?" Sands asked. 

"It’s ugly," El replied curtly. 

"So this is another one of those times when I should be glad I can’t see?"

"Something like that," El said. 

A month ago that comment would have earned El a punch in the mouth. Now Sands just frowned with annoyance. "So how do we get in?" he asked. 

The night was warm, lit by a moon nearly three-quarters full. They were crouched down low, hiding among the flowering bushes that lined the stone wall surrounding the estate. When the sun had gone down, they had scaled the wall and dropped lightly onto the ground, using the bushes to cushion their landing. The lack of tight security told El that the person living here now was not terribly important to the cartel, but that mattered little.

After all, you had to start somewhere. 

The back of the house was one huge glass wall. El peered through the screen of the bushes. Beyond a kidney-shaped swimming pool was a patio with sleek furniture, then a sliding glass door that let into the house. The ground was open, and provided little cover. 

He looked back at Sands and nearly laughed out loud. A drooping branch of the bush behind Sands was resting atop the CIA agent’s head, and a single bright red flower lay in his hair, giving him an oddly elegant look. 

Abruptly he asked, "What is your name?"

Sands frowned. "What difference does it make?"

"I want to know," El said. He had not thought about it much, since the first time Sands had refused to tell him, but suddenly now it seemed important. What they were about to do could get them both killed. It was stupid to stand on ceremony at this stage of the game.

So he took a deep breath, and told Sands his name.

"How are we going to do this?" Sands asked. He gave no indication that he had heard El’s revelation.

El said nothing, but he had no intention of letting it drop.

Because an interesting thing had begun to take shape over the past few weeks. Something was happening to him and Sands. They weren’t friends, not by any stretch, but El had begun to think that maybe one day they could be. He would never stop missing Carolina, but he was starting to think he had found something to fill in at least a little of the hole her death had created in his life. He had never had a companion like Sands, never spent so much time before around someone he considered an equal. From the start he had respected Sands, and that respect had only grown over time.

And he thought -- he hoped -- Sands respected him back. That the man shared his feelings on the matter. 

But if not, well, the last couple months had certainly been eventful ones. No one could say otherwise.

Sands sighed. "My name is Sheldon Jeffrey Sands," he said. "Happy now?"

El bit his lip, very hard, to keep from laughing.

"And if I ever hear those words coming out of your mouth, I will gut you and leave you in the dirt to die, you savvy?"

"Si, si," El said, grinning, lapsing into his native Spanish in his amusement.

His smile died as he looked back at the house. He and Sands had shared a moment, and broken down a little more of the barriers between them, but now it was time. "I’m going in alone," he said. 

"The hell you are," Sands replied. 

"Stay here," El said, "and if you hear anything, let me know." 

"Yes, through our magical, invisible, two-way radio," Sands said. "That’s a great plan, _El_." 

El nodded. He had expected Sands to argue; he would have been disappointed if the agent had not. He drew his gun and screwed the silencer on the muzzle. "I’m doing this alone." 

Hatred twisted Sands’ face. He knew he was bested; had known it all along. "Fine," he hissed. "Go, then. Fuck off." 

Frowning, El crept from the bushes. A month ago he would have left the CIA agent without a moment’s hesitation. And if Sands had insisted on coming along he would have knocked the man unconscious and left him behind without a second thought. But now he found himself wanting to stay a little longer, and explain himself. He wanted to say, _I don’t want you going in there because I don’t think you would come back out._

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. But that didn’t stop him from feeling it. 

**** 

The interior of the house was just as eye-poppingly awful as the outside. Glass and chrome winked from every corner, and the furniture was decorated in bright colors that made El think of poisonous flowers. 

Two men were sitting at the kitchen table, playing poker and munching on popcorn. El stepped into the kitchen, beside the shiny-bright range, and shot them both before they even knew he was there. He hurried forward and caught one body before it could hit the floor and make noise, but not the other. That man toppled off his chair in a shower of red and blue poker chips.

El froze, still holding the first dead man. He looked around wildly, listening hard, but no one came running into the kitchen to see what all the racket was about. Breathing easier, El laid the body on the floor. He went through both men’s pockets and took their wallets, but did not open them up. That could come later. 

As quietly as possible, he moved through the empty house. Earlier in the day he had taped down the chains on his pants, but they still made a muffled sound, and he winced with every step. 

He encountered no one, until he reached the master bedroom. The door to this room was ajar, and he could hear snoring. 

Slowly he began pushing open the door. He would slip inside, press his gun gently to the sleeping person’s cheek, and ask his questions. And if the man did not answer correctly, El was going to kill him. 

This plan, like most plans El created, fell apart right from the start. 

The hinges of the door creaked loudly as it opened, and El cringed at the noise. From in the bedroom, the snoring came to an abrupt halt. "Rico?" said a voice that did not sound at all sleepy. 

Cursing to himself, El spun around, back into the hall. He had no sooner done this than a spray of shot embedded itself in the door and doorframe. 

El threw himself to the floor, twisting around as he fell, so he was facing the bedroom. He landed on his back. He lay still, holding the gun up, aimed at the dark rectangle of the doorway. 

A minute passed, then two. And at last a man appeared in the doorway. He was old and short, and he was armed with a shotgun. 

El shot him three times, and watched as the man tumbled down the hall from the force of the bullets hitting his chest. 

When he was sure the man was dead, he stood up. He began walking back down the hall.

He had just killed their most promising contact to the cartel. Sands was going to be pissed. 

**** 

He walked out the front door. He wanted to make sure there was no more security, no more men lurking on the premises somewhere. 

He moved slowly, keeping close to the house itself. But no one shouted to see him, no one shot at him. Gradually he began to relax. He had gotten away with it. Their link to the cartel was dead and that was bad, but he was still alive, and no one was any the wiser about what had happened here. 

He wondered suddenly if he should leave a note on the kitchen table inside the house, propped up among the spilled popcorn and the jokers and kings and tens. Something like, _Looking for Bucho_. Only this one would say, _Looking for Escalante._

He was still trying to make up his mind when he heard something. A quick sound, like a person who wished to shout and yet still remain quiet. 

Immediately he dropped to a crouch, his eyes scanning the night. Sands must have heard someone, and this was his way of warning El. 

He could see no one. Nodding to himself, he made his way around the side of the house, hugging the pink stone of the outer wall. The threat must be in back, by the pool and the ugly patio furniture. 

From the backyard he heard another cut-off shout. And then he heard voices. 

"Shit!" El moved quickly to the back of the house, his gun leading the way. At the corner, he stopped and peered around, into the backyard. 

He could see four men. Three of them were armed. The fourth was on his knees, his arms held by two others. 

"Donde esta El Mariachi?" one of them asked. El ground his teeth in frustration. He had never really held out any hope that the cartel didn’t know it was him, but it still rankled to learn that they knew for sure. Sometimes it seemed like everyone in Mexico knew who he was.

Sands struggled in the grip of the men holding him down. "Fuck you," he snarled. 

"If that is the way you want it." The third man slammed the stock of his rifle into Sands’ face. Sands’ head snapped back, and his sunglasses went flying. 

All three men pulled back in horror at the sight of what the glasses had hidden. 

El raised his gun, swearing under his breath. Their last secret was out. Before the hour was up, Escalante would know the man traveling with El Mariachi was the CIA agent Barillo was supposed to have killed. 

Unless, El realized, he silenced the men before they could spill the secrets they had learned tonight. 

The man with the rifle struck Sands again. The two men holding him laughed. Sands stopped struggling and went limp in their grasp. El took careful aim at the man with the rifle, and shot him twice in the back. 

The man staggered forward, and bumped into Sands. He collapsed, taking Sands with him. The other two men, suddenly freed of their captive, turned around and brought their weapons to bear. 

El spun back around the side of the house. The stone chipped and shattered under the hail of gunfire that came his way. 

He looked around quickly, surveying his surroundings. There was a low thorny bush at the corner of the wall, near the front of the house, and a garden hose lay in the grass like a dead snake. There was nothing else. 

The shooting stopped in the backyard. The two men were coming for him. 

There was a window on the side of the house, a narrow piece of glass that looked into a bathroom. El climbed onto the stone ledge under the window. He glanced up, then tossed his gun onto the roof. He reached up with both hands, balancing precariously on his toes on the ledge, and grabbed the roof eave. 

With a groaning heave, he pulled himself up. He got one knee on the roof, and after that it was easier. He rolled onto his side and disappeared out of sight just as the two men came around the corner of the house. 

He could hear them talking, urgent whispers in Spanish, trying to figure out where he had gone. El reached for his gun and slowly, without even looking over the edge of the roof, lowered the weapon below the eave. 

He closed his eyes, letting the sound of their voices guide him. He bent his arm at the wrist, compensating for the angle he was at, and then fired. 

Shouts of pain and alarm rose in the air. He had emptied the clip in the gun before there was any return fire. Pain exploded in his forearm, and he yanked his arm back over the roof.

The shooting from below continued for a moment, but only one gun was firing. He had killed one of them. 

Which meant there was one man left. And El was out of ammo. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants and examined his arm. The bullet had gone in and out just above his wrist, tearing out a bloody chunk of his arm with it. Blood ran from the wound, and tears of pain misted his eyes.

 _Be thankful you didn’t peek your head over the roof_ , he thought. _You’d be dead now._

He scampered across the roof, following the incline, using his good hand to aid his climb. At the peak of the roof he paused, listening again. He couldn’t hear anything, so he carefully let himself down the front side of the roof, lying flat on his back on the slate and inching downward a little at a time, leaving bloody handprints behind him to mark his progress. 

When he neared the edge of the roof at the front of the house, he stopped again. He rolled onto his side, close enough to the edge that he could have peeked over, if he had wanted to. He did not peek. He just waited, and listened. 

And there came the footsteps of the last man. He was trying to be quiet, but not very successfully. El was able to tell exactly where he was. 

He let himself drop from the roof. The man below heard him coming and whirled around, bringing his gun up, but he was too slow. El had timed his jump perfectly. He collided with the man, and they both plummeted to the ground, El on top and using the man to break his fall. 

The man hit the earth hard, and the breath whooshed out of his lungs with a sour smell of beer and spoiled meat. He lay stunned, unable to move as El plucked the gun from his hand. 

"Muchas gracias," El said, and shot him.

He hurried around to the back of the house, holding the gun with his left hand, pressing his injured arm against his chest. He wanted Carolina then, wanted her badly. She had always treated his wounds rather roughly, but afterward she had held him, and he had felt safe, no matter where they had been.

No one was moving in the backyard. El went quickly toward the bushes, then stopped. The first man he had shot, the one who had held the rifle, had a knife sticking out from between his shoulder blades.

Sands was lying on his back next to the man, one arm outflung. He had found his sunglasses, but he had not put them on. They dangled uselessly from his fingers. Blood covered the left side of his face and ran into his hair. It was impossible to tell if he was conscious or not, but he was so still El did not believe he was aware of anything.

El threw another glance about, part of him unable to believe that there were no more men out there to kill, then knelt beside the CIA agent. He reached out and gingerly gave Sands a shake.

He had expected Sands to come awake immediately, to strike out at him, even. But Sands did not move.

El sat back on his heels and reconstructed the scene. The man with the knife in his back had fallen forward when El had shot him. Both he and Sands had fallen, and quite probably both had lain there for a while, the entire time El had been in the house, perhaps.

Then the other man had begun to stir. El’s shots had not been fatal, and the man had seen Sands. He had attacked. Or maybe he had just coughed, or groaned aloud. Whatever he had done, the sound had woken Sands.

And Sands had killed him. 

El shook the CIA agent again. "Get up."

Sands twitched, and made a sound that vaguely resembled speech. 

"Get up," El said. "We have to go."

Sands tried to speak again and failed. Instead he held up his right hand, middle finger extended.

El grinned. He gripped Sands’ wrist, and after a moment, Sands returned the clasp. El pulled the man into a sitting position. "They’re all dead," he said. He paused, then added, "Including the man we came to see. 

"But," he said. "I took their wallets, and there is a large desk in the living room, with papers. We may still be able to get the information we want."

Sands was clearly not happy with sitting up. He touched the fingers of one hand to his temple, and groaned. He swayed and nearly fell over, but despite this, he started to pull free of El’s grasp.

Although his arm was screaming with pain, El held on for a moment longer. "Are you all right?" He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and started to dab at the blood on Sands’ cheek.

The CIA agent hissed and flinched away. "What are you doing?" he slurred.

"You need stitches," El said. "That will scar."

Sands shrugged, and then winced. "Well, gosh, El, it’s sweet of you to worry, but I think I’m already as disfigured as I’m going to be."

El sighed. He thrust the handkerchief into Sands’ hand. "Keep it."

Sands cocked his head. It was a gesture that, if he had been able to see, would have allowed him to give El a puzzled look. He yanked his hand free. "Why El, I didn’t know you cared."

For some reason, that pissed him off. He had been acting out of genuine concern, and Sands had thrown that back at him like it was worthless. "Of course I care," he snapped. "Why wouldn’t I?"

"Well, don’t," Sands snapped back.

"Huh?" He was too startled to say anything more coherent.

"I said, don’t. Don’t care."

El just shook his head. He could understand Sands’ fierce desire to be independent, but he thought that refusing to accept help when it was offered was nothing short of stupidity. He was as proud as any man, but he had never turned down aid, no matter who had offered it.

"Seeing this side of you is like seeing the softer side of Sears."

El blinked. "I don’t know what that means," he said.

Sands sighed. "It means cheap, derivative, and a poor fit. It means, caring doesn’t look good on you, so stop it. Just stop it."

El rose to his feet. He stood still as Sands put his sunglasses on, then leaned over and retrieved his knife from the dead man’s back. 

He stood there, blood dripping from the hole in his arm, while Sands tried to get up and fell back with a frustrated groan. 

He stood there, staring at the red flowers on the bushes, and he waited.

He had to wait a long time. By the time Sands finally reached out a hand, El had almost given up on him. He turned around so he could help the man up, and then Sands spoke, in a voice that was no more than a whisper, and called El Mariachi by his name.

******************

Chapter 9: Music Hath Charms

 

Inside the ugly stone-and-glass house they had found what they were looking for. Information. They knew where they were going now. They had a goal. A destination.

And El had never felt more lost.

He could not explain it. Frustrated with himself, he paced floors, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel when driving. He retreated into sullen silence, speaking very little, and growling his answers when he had to talk. He looked longingly at walls and wanted to drive his fist through them. He drove past streetlamps and had to actively refrain himself from wrapping the car around them.

The simple truth, the ugly truth he wanted to badly deny, was that he did not want to find Escalante. He did not want to kill his quarry. Oh, he still wanted to destroy the cartel, but he wanted to leave enough of them alive so the pursuit could continue. 

Because the simple truth, the ugly truth, was that El did not want things to end. He wanted them to go on as they were. And he knew that wouldn’t happen. Once Escalante was dead and the cartel was shattered, he would return to his village and his guitars, and Sands would go to Puerto Vallarta or whatever place would take a blind ex-CIA agent, and El would never see him again.

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. But logic had nothing to do with it. All El knew was that he did not want to let Sands go.

A frustrated sigh escaped him. The night was warm and dark, but there was enough of a breeze that he was not uncomfortable. They were too close to Escalante now, and they had not dared enter the village. El had left the car behind a series of scraggly hills that effectively hid them from any passing vehicles on the road. A small fire burned, providing light. It was not the first night they had spent outdoors, but it was the first when El could not sleep.

He strummed the guitar on his lap and sang a few rough words. Music had always had the ability to calm him, but the magical power of the notes was not working tonight. The guitar in his hands was not alive with possibility. It felt like a dead thing, a mere object of wood and string and shiny bits of metal. For a terrible moment he thought about smashing it on the ground, and had to stop himself with difficulty.

“Que quieres en la vida?” he whispered. Played a few notes. “Que quiero?”

_What do I want?_

A hand reached out, plucked the guitar from El’s hand. He scrambled to his feet, one hand diving reflexively for the gun at his hip. Then he saw it was only Sands, and he relaxed somewhat. He had not even heard the man approach. 

“Do you mind? Some of us are trying to sleep.” His voice held that drawling note that El had heard plenty of times before, but sometimes, like tonight, that voice made El go cold all over, goosebumps rising on his arms. That was another one of those stupid things that made no sense, but again, logic did not apply here. 

“How can you sleep?” El asked. “Tomorrow we face Escalante.”

“Well,” Sands drawled, “have you ever tried counting sheep?” He settled himself on the ground, El’s guitar in his lap. “And by sheep I mean lovely blonde women in very white, very skimpy, bikinis.”

After the near-disaster at the drug house, a tentative peace had come over them. It might even have become a genuine friendship, but El’s inner frustration had prevented him from taking that step. He had responded to Sands’ talk with grunts and monosyllabic answers, never initiating conversation on his own. Yet Sands had not seemed put off by El’s silence, strangely enough, and that was another thing that made no sense.

He wondered if maybe, just maybe, Sands was feeling the same frustration he was.

He gestured to his guitar. “Do you know how to play that?”

Sands held out one hand. “Give me a bullet from your gun.”

El frowned, but did as he was told. He tossed the bullet across the space separating them, and Sands caught it deftly. He held it between the third and fourth fingers of his left hand, touched it to the strings of the guitar, and began to play.

El was shocked. He had never heard such sounds coming from his guitar. Sands slid his hand up and down the guitar neck, dragging the bullet down the strings, producing long notes that seemed to go on forever, trembling a little before they dissolved into the night air. The music spoke of longing, of nights under the stars, of life lived for each moment. 

And then Sands hit a wrong note, and the song fell apart. He pressed the palm of his right hand to the strings, mashing them flat. “Well,” he said. “I don’t play as well as I used to. It’s kind of hard when I can’t see the fucking frets.” His left hand tightened on the neck of the guitar, a moment away from bringing it down on the hard ground and smashing it into a thousand pieces.

The music was still there, the notes rising invisibly toward the stars. El looked up, searching for them. He did not want to let them go.

Tomorrow they would go into the village, and from there into the hills beyond. Tomorrow they would face Ramon Escalante, new leader of the cartel formerly under Barillo’s command. Tomorrow there would be killing, and lots of it.

 _And if I am the one killed?_ El thought. _Who would mourn me?_

He knew if Sands died, he would mourn.

He moved closer, so he was sitting in front of the CIA agent. “Show me,” he said, “how you do that.”

Sands shook his head. “No.”

El took Sands’ right hand off the strings, and held it. He felt cold all over again, except for a small fire burning deep within him. He ran his thumb over Sands’ fingers, long, elegant fingers he had broken once, when everything had been so clear and he had only hated this man. “Show me.”

“No,” Sands said. “Don’t touch me,” he said, but he did not try to pull his hand free.

“I won’t hurt you,” El said, and leaned in. The fire inside him was growing, feeding on hope and desire and confusion all twisted together until he didn’t know what was what anymore. All he knew was that he was so close to figuring things out, to finally understanding what was driving him these days, keeping him awake at night and full of frustration during the day. He had to find out. He had to know for sure.

Sands did not move as El kissed him. His mouth was soft. He tasted like tequila.

The fire inside him was burning so bright it threatened to eclipse what remained of El’s sanity. He let it consume him, and gave himself up to its flames. He dragged his mouth from Sands’ lips and trailed kisses down the agent’s neck, forcing Sands to tilt his head back so his dark hair pooled on his shoulders. Sands was breathing hard, but he made no sound. He just sat there and let El kiss him.

The fire was taking over. Somewhere deep inside a voice cried out that this was wrong, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, and then the flames swallowed it whole, and it went silent. 

He was still holding Sands’ right hand, so El reached blindly for the guitar with his other hand, and moved it so it no longer was between them.

He shifted closer, scooting forward on his knees until nothing separated him from Sands. He captured the agent’s mouth again, not so gently this time, putting the frustration of the past few weeks into the kiss, plundering Sands’ mouth, taking what he wanted, what he hadn’t even known he had wanted, until just now.

“Mine,” he growled. The cartel could fuck themselves. He had what he wanted, and this time he was not going to let it get away. He started to lean forward, easing Sands down to the ground.

Cold steel nestled under his jaw, making him go still. His eyes flew open. 

Sands pulled free. His lips were bruised and swollen, and El quivered at the sight. “I said, don’t touch me.”

The fire did not want to go out. El considered going ahead anyway, then slowly sat back. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“Well, that depends,” Sands drawled. The hand holding the gun was steady. “Are you going to try to rape me in my sleep?”

El recoiled. Rape was such an ugly word. It meant violence, and force, and that wasn’t what he had been doing, that had not been his intention. He had wanted—

And then he looked again at Sands’ bruised mouth, and his shoulders slumped. “I am sorry,” he whispered.

“Well, I should think so,” Sands said, but the light tone of his voice slipped a little, and El knew he was not as blasé about the kiss as he pretended to be. That made him feel a little better, but not much.

He picked up his guitar and moved back to where he had been sitting. He could make excuses, try to explain why he had done it, but he did not want to ruin the night any more than it had already been ruined. Let Sands wonder why he had done it.

Sands put the gun away. “We’re done here?”

El nodded. He knew the other man could not see him, but he could not manage more than that.

In his mind, he was seeing Carolina. She was looking at him, her face revealing nothing of her thoughts. He wanted to kneel to her, put his arms around her. _I’m sorry, mi amor, but I need someone. I need someone to hold, someone who can stand beside me. Can you understand? Can you forgive me?_

Carolina nodded solemnly, her dark eyes full of love. 

El dropped his head into his hands.

“El? I asked you a question,” Sands said.

“Yes,” he groaned, his voice muffled by his hands.

“Good. Now that we’ve established that you can keep your lips to yourself, I’ll just be over there, trying to sleep.” Sands stood up and started to walk across their camp, back to the place where he had been sleeping earlier, before El’s music had woken him.

“Wait.” El lowered his hands to his lap.

“What?” Sands said. He sounded weary, as though El’s kisses had drained his strength.

“What do you want in life?” El asked him.

Sands’ jaw tightened. "I don't know," he said. "I had hoped chasing after Escalante would be enough, but as it's turned out, it hasn’t been.” He sighed, and dropped his head, so his hair fell forward and hid his face. "I just want things to be simple again," he said quietly. "I'm not even in control of my own life anymore." For a moment it seemed like he might say something more, then he just shook his head.

He knew he shouldn't ask, but he had to know. "At the house in Caimanero, why didn’t you tell those men where I was?" 

The question had been bothering him ever since that night. He could not think why Sands had protected him, at the agent’s own expense. Such a selfless act didn’t fit with what he knew about Sands. 

But it made him wonder. People could change – he was living proof of that. Maybe Sands could change too, and leave his madness and cynicism behind. 

"I don’t know." Sands shrugged. "I just knew I wasn’t going to give those fuckers what they wanted." 

"Oh," El said. So much for his theory about people changing.

"What, you thought maybe I was suddenly ready to defend you to the death or something?" Sands sounded genuinely amused by this. 

El stammered to make a reply, and could come up with nothing. 

"Listen." The humor had vanished from the CIA agent’s voice. "If I stayed silent back there, it wasn’t to save you. It was to save me. The instant I told them what they wanted to know, they would have killed me. So it made sense for me to keep my mouth shut." 

"Always looking out for yourself," El said.

"No one else is going to do it!" Sands snapped. 

El shook his head. "You will not trust me," he said. 

"Well, let me think, El. Since I’ve known you, you’ve thrown me off a porch, handcuffed me to your car, broken my fingers, and never missed an opportunity to stomp me into the ground." Sands recited these things dryly, with his old carefree sarcasm. "Now, even you must realize that those things don’t exactly inspire trust and loyalty in the one being shit upon." 

It was all true, El thought with a dour frown. He had treated Sands like shit right from the beginning. "You gave me no choice," he said. "You tried to kill me."

He expected Sands to protest angrily. Instead, the agent just shrugged. "I know," he said. 

El stared at him. "But now," he said. "You could trust me now." 

That deceptive light-heartedness Sands put on, deceptive because it made him appear approachable and friendly, fell away. "Trust," he mocked. "I don’t think so. Because you see, the last time I trusted someone, I lost _my_ ability to see things clearly. So I’m afraid I’ve got quite the issue with trust, these days, El my dear friend." 

El said nothing to this. He understood. A long time ago, so long ago it seemed like something that had happened to another man, he had been trusting. He had been soft. Then he had arrived in the wrong town and gotten involved with the wrong men, and since then everything in his life had turned to shit. Carolina had loved him, and she taught him to trust again, but it had been a difficult process. Trust was easy to lose, and all but impossible to relearn.

"Besides," Sands continued, "do you think I intend to stick around after tomorrow? Ten minutes after the dust clears, I’m going to be--" 

"Why don’t you go back home?" El interrupted. "Back to America?" 

Sands stopped in mid-tirade. "I can’t go back." He hesitated. "There’s nothing for me there. Besides, you heard the good Agent Ramirez. If I went back they’d slap me in a nuthouse so fast it would put Speedy Gonzalez to shame." 

"Why do you think that?" El asked. He knew the answer, but he was curious to hear what Sands would say. 

"Well, because I’m insane," Sands said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "At the moment, I am also an embarrassment and a liability to the CIA. And we can’t have that now, can we?" 

"So, you will just hide from them forever?" El settled the guitar on his lap, but he felt no urge to play it. 

Sands smiled without humor. "It would appear so." 

"You could be killed tomorrow," El suggested. 

"Well, you know," Sands said, "that wouldn’t be so bad, either." 

"To go down fighting," El said. This he understood too. 

"Got it in one," Sands said. He turned and walked away, out of the circle of light created by the fire, and into the darkness.

El set the guitar aside and watched him go. Tomorrow they would take on Escalante, and one pursuit would end. And then a new pursuit would begin. He knew what he wanted now, and he meant to have it. 

He stretched out on the hard ground. He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. He needed the rest. This new chase would take him all over, and it would not be easy. Sands would fight him every step of the way. 

El smiled. That was all right. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

********************** 

Chapter 10: What's at Stake

 

Sands is dreaming.

In the dream he is eight years old again, a short, scrawny kid hated by everyone in the neighborhood. He kills cats when he can catch them, dogs too if they are the small yappy kind. Everyone knows this but no one can prove it. This is a nice neighborhood, where accusations are considered tacky, so the neighbors just settle for glaring at him when he rides his bike past their houses. He glares right back and mutters under his breath that they had better stop and flips them off.

They hate him in school too. They tease him about his name, the way he talks, his penchant for following other kids during recess, trying to shadow them without their knowing it. He has been in several fights, but not recently. Word has gotten out that he fights dirty – eyes and crotches are fair game as far as he is concerned. Whatever it takes to win.

On this day, the day of his dream, he is walking home from school. Another boy is following him, and he knows it. Apparently his enemies have decided that tormenting him from afar is no longer fun. His shoulders hunch, his hands curl into fists. 

The boy behind him calls his name. And for a change there is no mockery attached to those two hated syllables. 

He turns around and sees Marcus Allen. Marcus Allen is nine, and he is short but chunky. Marcus Allen is the kind of boy who thinks it is great fun to stick his foot out and trip the little kids as they run past him at recess.

"What do you want?" young Sheldon Jeffrey Sands asks. Already at eight he is paranoid and suspicious of everyone. He doesn’t like talking to people, because they say things he doesn’t expect, and then he doesn’t know how to respond. He wishes he could control conversations.

Marcus Allen sidles up. His hands are jammed in his pockets. The boys are walking through a neighborhood where every other house is under construction. "I just want to talk to you."

"Why?" He is instantly wary. No one ever talks to him, except to call him names, most of which insult his mother too. This doesn’t bother him. His mother really is a bitch.

"’Cause." Marcus Allen hangs his head. "I wanted to say I was sorry."

"Why?"

"’Cause my mom said I should," says Marcus Allen. He holds out his hand like he expects his enemy to shake it. He shrugs. "And ‘cause I want to."

He sounds sullen, unhappy to be making this apology. Young Sands is comforted by that. It makes him believe Marcus Allen is for real.

He reaches out, takes Marcus Allen’s hand.

And Marcus Allen yanks him forward and punches him right in the nose.

Bright pinwheels of pain spin in his vision. He staggers backward, his hands flying up to cup his face. Marcus Allen laughs loudly as he runs away. "I can’t believe you fell for that, Shellll-don!"

Red rage drops across his vision. Howling with fury, he gives chase.

The two boys run through the neighborhood. They pelt each other with rocks and clods of dirt. Somehow they end up on a small mountain of rock and dirt, in what will be the front yard of a large brick house. Bloodied and bruised, they pay no attention to their surroundings.

They fight, kicking and hitting and even biting when the opportunity presents itself. They scream at each other, swearing and using words their parents would be shocked to hear. And then somehow -- even in the dream this is never clear -- they are falling, down the mound, still hitting at each other, bouncing all the way down to the bottom, where a haphazard pile of bricks are jumbled together.

They hit the ground hard. Marcus Allen cries out, and then is still, half his head caved in by the corner of a brick. 

Dazed by the impact, young Sands lifts his head. He sees his enemy defeated, and grins. Then he passes out.

****

When he woke, it was night. Well, it was always night for him nowadays, but this was real night, for the rest of the world.

El was asleep, breathing with that thin nasal whistling noise Sands hated. He gritted his teeth together and promised himself that if El didn’t stop soon, he would throw something at the man. Something heavy. With sharp edges, maybe.

He felt unsettled, uncomfortable in his own skin. He knew that was the result of the dream. It had been a while since he had dreamed it – lately his nightmares consisted of sharp tools and blinding pain, get it, blinding? ha ha, so funny – but tonight it had been the same old dream, no different than before.

He had lied to El when he had said his first kill was three men who tried to mug him. His first kill had been Marcus Allen.

Marcus Allen, who had liked to wear football jerseys with the number 3 on them.

Sands absently rubbed the tattoo on his hand. That day in his eighth year had changed everything. He had spent the rest of that spring in a cast, hobbling alone down the school halls, perpetually late for class because he could not walk fast enough to make it before the bell rang. 

Marcus Allen had lived for two weeks in a coma, and then he had died.

No one had blamed him. He had manufactured a few tears, said they had just been playing, and things had gotten a little rough, and he didn’t remember what happened next, falling down the pile of construction slag. Everyone knew he and Marcus Allen had been enemies, but no one had remarked on the oddness of the two of them suddenly playing together as buddies. There had been a few questions, some frowns, and then it was over. 

He had gotten away with it. Killing Marcus had been an accident, but Sands didn’t believe in accidents. Things happened for a reason. Marcus had died in order to show him what he was capable of.

Tomorrow morning would be the final revelation, the final unveiling. Tomorrow morning they would sneak through the woods and come out in front of Escalante’s house. Tomorrow morning there was going to be killing. Lots of it.

Sands couldn’t wait. Earlier he had acted like he had been sleeping, just to make El feel bad for playing the guitar, but he hadn’t been asleep. Tomorrow was too important. Everything was at stake. If he failed tomorrow, then that was it. Game over. See ya, good-bye. He had failed at the drug house, and El had had to bail his ass out. That wouldn’t be happening tomorrow. If he failed tomorrow, and the cartel didn’t kill him first, he was going to eat his own gun. Because he had never really liked this life much anyway, and he could think of no reason to pretend to like it when he couldn’t even see what was so shitty about it.

Somewhere on his left, El began muttering in his sleep. Sands sighed, a dramatic, martyr’s, "why me?" sigh. Always it was the same, every night. Every night El dreamed of his wife’s death, reliving it. And every night he woke and tried to pretend it had not happened. 

Everyone had their demons.

El startled awake, his wife’s name on his lips. He sat up and muttered to himself in rapid Spanish. 

Like he did every night, Sands pretended he didn’t hear. One advantage to not having any eyes was that no one could ever tell if you were awake or asleep. He wasn’t protecting El’s pride out of any false loyalty to the mariachi. He stayed quiet for his own reasons. He worked – _had_ worked – for the CIA, and that meant he was in the information gathering business. He had no idea what good it would do him to know that El dreamed of his wife every night, but he knew the information would stand him in good stead at some point in the future.

So he stayed quiet. 

El got up and walked away. Sands lay still. He knew El was disappointed in him, and he took a certain pleasure in that. But – and this was the strange thing – he felt bad about that, too.

He had told the truth, though, for once. He had only protected El because he had been protecting himself. Not just because the men would have killed him once they knew the truth, but because without El, he would have no way of making it to Escalante’s house. Without El, there would be no killing, no bloodbath, no vengeance.

Life would be so much easier for El, Sands reflected, if El simply understood one thing about him. Everything he did, _everything_ , was about himself. It always had been. Even something as grand and chaotic as the coup by Marquez had been about himself. It had been about money, and the opportunity to finally turn his back on the CIA and everyone who had ever laughed at him.

It had been his chance to escape.

And all that had been destroyed. Barillo had taken more than his eyes. He had lost his freedom on that day. 

All he had left was what he had now. A few guns, lots of ammunition, a sullen partner he couldn’t stand, and a chance to prove that he wasn’t out of the game.

That was why tomorrow was so important. He had to succeed. Afterward, knowing that he could stand on his own, he would leave. Fuck El. He had meant to disappear after the coup and make a new life somewhere on his own. Well, he still meant to do that. He would just have to do it a little differently now.

El came walking back. "Are you awake?"

Sands thought about saying nothing, then gave a mental shrug. "Yes."

"Then get up. It’s time to go."

He sat up. The night was warmer, and the breeze had dropped, anticipating the arrival of morning. "So then. Tell me the grand plan. How are we doing this?"

He heard El hunker down, and then there came the sound of rattling, the sound of guns being loaded. "First promise me one thing."

Sands shrugged. He had never kept a promise in his life. "Sure."

"When this is over, I want you to show me how to play the guitar like you did."

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. El really was too goddamn funny sometimes. "El my friend," he said grandly, "when this is over, I’ll show you anything you want."

Something was tossed his way. He raised his hands and caught the gun a second before it would have smashed him in the face. 

"Good," El said. "Then listen." He snapped the chamber of a pistol shut. 

"This is my plan."

******************

Chapter 11: El and the Cartel

 

The hacienda where Ramon Escalante lived was built of yellow stone and draped with honeysuckle. It was sprawling, imposing, and Escalante probably fancied it the most beautiful building in all of Mexico.

El Mariachi thought it was the ugliest house he had ever seen.

This wasn’t really the house’s fault, however. By itself the house was nothing special, non-assuming and easily dismissed. It was the man inside the house that made the difference.

Armando Barillo had been a monster. But if the stories were true – and El had no reason to believe they weren’t -- Ramon Escalante made Barillo look like a saint. Over the past few months El had heard things about Escalante that had frozen him to the core.

Escalante, it was rumored, enjoyed cockfighting, dogfights, and he also enjoyed pitting his men against each other in fights to the death. The winner was promoted within the ranks of the cartel. The loser was buried in the backyard.

Escalante beat women, had been known to shoot children, and ruled his cartel ruthlessly. Since Barillo’s death and his takeover, the output of drugs flowing into the U.S. had been on the increase. Word was Escalante wanted production doubled within six more months. He wanted to be the biggest cartel in all of Mexico. It was said he even had his sights set on the cartels in Colombia. 

El had no intention of allowing Escalante to achieve any of those goals.

The day was still young; dawn was just breaking. Under cover of darkness, he and Sands had slipped through the hills until they stood just outside the hacienda. 

They were both heavily armed. Sands wore four guns, two on his hips and two in shoulder holsters. El carried his favorite snub shotgun, three pistols and enough spare shot to weigh him down when he walked. He also had a sizable chunk of plastic explosive Fideo had given him.

The hacienda had a large courtyard, which was open and airy. It gave access to most points in the house, and on three sides its outer wall was the house itself. The fourth side faced outward, and here it was solid stone, except for a wide archway in the middle of the wall. The arch was wide enough for a truck to drive through, and it was deep. Two men could easily have stood within it, and remained under the arch over their heads.

"You understand?" El asked.

"Oh my Christ," Sands swore in disgust. "I’m blind, not six."

El nodded. "I just want to be sure you understand how it all looks." He had carefully described the courtyard, all the doors that led into it from the house, the location of the archway in relation to everything else. "I’m going inside. You stay here, and shoot anything that moves."

Sands grinned. "What happens if I accidentally shoot you?"

This made El pause. For long periods of time he would almost forget the CIA agent was insane, and then Sands would forcibly remind him, usually by saying something like this.

"You wouldn’t dare," he said.

Five minutes later he was inside the house, in the kitchen. It smelled strongly of fish from last night’s dinner, and El wrinkled up his nose. Today was Saturday. Apparently Ramon Escalante, whatever else he might be, was also a good Catholic who didn’t eat meat on Fridays.

At this early hour, there was no one in the kitchen. El took out the explosive he had gotten from Fideo. He opened the oven and peered inside. A grease-spattered sheet was on the rack. El carefully placed the block on the sheet, closed the door, and turned the oven on.

He left the kitchen and made his way down the hall. When he found a room far enough away, he ducked inside and waited. This was not like the ugly house Ajedrez had owned. He could not go through this place, shooting indiscriminately. Now was the time to exercise patience. Let them come to him.

Idly he thought about Sands. He wondered if the CIA agent was bored yet, or if he would do something stupid, like try to join El in the house.

When the explosive went off in the kitchen, the resulting pillar of fire consumed half the house. Men died instantly, never even knowing they were in any danger. The entire hacienda trembled, and El clapped his hands over his ears as a painful wall of sound washed over him.

When his ears stopped ringing, he heard men shouting. They knew he was here now. 

It was time.

Lorenzo and Fideo had wanted to come with him. He had told them his plan and their eyes had lit up. But he had rejected their offer of help, saying he didn’t need them. This was true, but there had been something else, another reason for his refusal.

The truth was, a part of El enjoyed doing this. It was only a tiny part, granted, and it was a part of himself that he hated, but he could not deny that he only seemed to come alive anymore when there was a gun in his hand and the taste of fear was in his mouth. The way he felt alive now. He stalked out of the room, guns in hand, and immediately met two surprised members of the cartel. He shot them both before they even had time to register that he was not one of them, then kept right on walking, reloading the shotgun as he went.

Out in the courtyard, he heard gunfire, and he grinned a hard, humorless grin.  
He reached a flight of stairs. It seemed the house had three floors, and he had entered on the second floor. Straight ahead the stairs went up, and to his right, off a landing with a wrought-iron balcony, they went down.

El went up, and found himself in a large living room. Men were moving around here, loading guns, asking in rapid in Spanish what was happening. In short succession, El killed two and downed a third.

The members of the cartel opened fire.

El leaped backward, clearing the steps in one jump, ending up on the landing below. He dropped to one knee, and when two men appeared at the top of the stairs, he shot them. They toppled forward and their bodes slid down the steps a little before coming to a halt.

Quickly, before others could see him, he spun around so he was on the steps going down, immediately beneath the steps going up.

Above him, two men started down, mindful not to tread on the bodies of their fallen comrades. They stopped, probably looking around, wondering where he had gone. The riser they stood on sagged a little with their combined weight.

El put the muzzle of the shotgun on the bottom of the step, ducked his head, and pulled the trigger.

The men screamed as their feet were blown apart. El turned and trotted quickly down the stairs. He turned to his left, and started down a hallway.

The hall was lined with closed doors that he assumed led to bedrooms. He opened none of them. He backed slowly down the hall, glancing often over his shoulder, arms spread wide so one gun was aimed ahead of him, and the other pointed behind him. 

The hall ended in a music room. A grand piano sat in one corner. The stool before it was cushioned in red velvet. A piece of sheet music sat open on the stand; El had never heard of the tune before. He sat at the piano and played a few notes, then stopped to listen. 

From deep in the house, he could hear shouting.

For no particular reason, he found himself suddenly remembering a conversation he and Sands had shared a few weeks back. This had been a few days after the incident with Miguel in the bar, after El had experimented with blindness. They had been sitting in a cafe, eating breakfast. Or rather, El had been eating. Sands had been smoking, gazing morosely toward the window and the light he could not see. And El had asked, "Why did you seek me out? For your coup?"

Sands had shrugged. "I had to have someone, didn’t I?"

"But why me?" he had insisted.

"Because." Sands had shaken his head. "One of my informants recommended you. I was looking for someone who could handle himself in a fight. Someone smart."

El had just sat there, waiting for the inevitable insult to his intelligence, something like, _Instead I ended up with you_. But surprisingly, Sands had let the opportunity go. "And your name came up. Or rather, your lack of a name, I should say."

 _Someone who could handle himself in a fight_. He ran his fingers over the keys. Played a little. He made a mental note to ask Sands if he could play the piano.

The shouting was getting closer. El stood up and pulled the lid over the ivory keys. He drew his guns and backed into the corner of the room, as far from the piano as he could get. He did not want such a fine instrument to be damaged. 

He waited.

For a long while no one came. He wondered how close the fire was, if he should begin to think about leaving the house before it burned down all around him. 

At last he heard footsteps. He tensed, and his fingers tightened imperceptibly on the triggers of his guns. 

Only one man appeared in the doorway. He poked his head in and gave the room a perfunctory glance. It was clear he did not expect to find anyone in here. El shot him in the head and moved swiftly to the door. He did not want to be trapped in here, where there was only one way in and one way out.

He stepped over the body in the door and moved down the hall. There was nobody down here that he could see.

That did not mean they were not there. El lowered his head and went on the hunt.

****

Twenty minutes later, covered in the blood of dead men, he found himself back at the staircase. 

He had cleared out the house – at least the sections that were not on fire. But one man still remained, the man he had come here to kill. 

He had not found Escalante on the second floor, or this, the first level. "All right," he said aloud. 

Back upstairs.

He mounted the steps and turned the corner of the landing, intending to climb up to the third floor, to where Escalante was hiding. He saw the man crouched there, waiting for him, and pulled the trigger, but he was a beat too slow. The other man had fired first, and El found himself tumbling backward down the stairs, his left side on fire. 

He landed hard, his shoulders and head on the floor, the rest of his body still draped on the stairs, uncomfortably angled upward. The man raised his gun and said, "Drop it."

El weighed his options, and released the gun.

"Away from you," the man ordered.

El gave the gun a shove, and it skittered across the carpet. 

"Now the others. Slowly."

He hesitated. The man made a small gesture with the gun, and El did as he was told. When he pushed the shotgun away from him, he felt a small pang in his chest.

"Now get up."

"I can’t," El said. "You shot me."

"Would you like me to shoot you again?" asked the man. He was thin, and a thick mustache covered his upper lip. He wore his hair long, in a fashion similar to El’s, and he was dressed very well, in neat gray pants and a white silk shirt.

El shook his head. "No." With an effort, he got to his feet. He leaned to the left, favoring his injured side. Hot blood soaked his shirt and jacket. "What happens now?"

"We go outside," said the man with the gun. "To your friend."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," El said.

The man fired again. El was spun about as the bullet embedded itself in his leg. He tried to keep his balance, and fell anyway, wringing a cry of pain from him as he hit the ground.

He lay still, breathing hard, fighting the pain. The man with the gun walked slowly down the stairs. "Now," he said. "We are going outside."

El could only nod his surrender. 

*********************

Chapter 12: Sands and Escalante

 

The hacienda where Ramon Escalante lived, the center of activity for his cartel, was beautiful. Soft yellow stone, jasmine and honeysuckle bushes, a cupola with a gold bell atop the roof. It was the picture of genteel wealth, a mixture of old Spain and new Mexico, the epitome of grandeur while somehow appearing modest and humble.

Or so Sands supposed. He had no fucking idea what the house looked like.

He stood just outside the arched entryway to the courtyard. El had left him here some time ago and told him to "shoot anything that moved." Only too happy to comply, Sands had grinned. 

"What happens if I accidentally shoot you?"

"You wouldn’t dare," El had said.

Sands smiled. "You know, I shot the last man who said that to me."

"Why?" El asked.

"Why?" Sands shook his head, thinking of Bellini. "Because he was a slimy bastard and I hated him, that’s why." He paused. "But the answer you’re really looking for is that I shot him because he found out one of my secrets."

El said nothing to this.

Sands laughed. "You really have no imagination, do you? Doesn’t it occur to you that you know too many of my secrets? Aren’t you worried that I’ll shoot you next?"

"No," El had said shortly. "Because if you were going to do it, you would have done it weeks ago." He had walked away.

El had been inside the hacienda for a while; Sands had no idea how long. Frankly he didn’t care.

Things were quiet now. First there had been a very large explosion. That had been followed by a lot of shooting. Men had run across the courtyard, and Sands had stepped into the archway and shot them all. A few of them had only been wounded, but their pained cries had guided his aim, and he had quickly corrected his mistakes. The guns in his hands were hot to the touch now, and he had scorched his fingertips from reloading so often. 

He had rarely been happier.

El was right. He was a gunfighter. Screw the CIA. This was what he had been born to do.  
The courtyard was quiet now. El had been in the house for a long time. There could not be many left alive inside. 

So where was El?

He wondered suddenly if El was dead. He might never know. Hours could pass, while he wondered when he should consider it all over. He could spend days out here trying to figure out how to get into the house, stumbling over dead bodies, patting them down to see if one was the mariachi.

"You better not," Sands muttered to himself. "You’re not allowed to die, you shit."

If El died, he would be left alone. Alone in the dark. With no way of going back. He had no idea where they were, or the layout of the land. He didn’t know if reinforcements from the cartel would show up soon. Surely not all of the members had been at the hacienda, surely some were still out there. How long before they arrived, expecting to find their friends and finding only slaughter and one frightened, blind CIA agent?

_No. No. No fucking way. You are not going to stand here and freak out._

But it was too easy to stand there and imagine all kinds of horrors. Without El, he was helpless. Sure, he could turn around and walk away. And then what? In two days he would find himself without food and water, wandering the desert or falling down a mountainside. That would be a laugh.

You could do it, a voice in his head said brightly. You know you could.

He knew that voice. It was the voice of his madness, the voice that urged him to pull the trigger, to make that call, to do the brilliant, the insane, the impossible. That voice had been quiet for a long time, but it was awake now, making him practically bounce with restless energy, the need to take action, to shout, to do something.

 _Go in the house_ , the voice whispered. _You’re missing out on all the fun!_

How could he refuse? Sands started forward, intending to enter the courtyard.

And he heard the jingling sounds of El Mariachi’s approach.

Immediately he flattened himself against the wall, still safely out of sight. Because he had heard two things in those footsteps, and they were both very wrong. The first was the dragging gait of someone who was hurt. 

The second was that El was not alone.

"Hola!" El called. "Estas aqui?" _Are you here?_

Sands tightened his grip on the guns in his hands and said nothing.

"Estan muerte," El said. _They’re all dead_. He stopped walking. "You can come out now. It’s safe. It’s over." He continued to speak in Spanish.

Not once, in all the time they had spent together, had El talked to him in Spanish. It was a warning, Sands realized, and shook his head. If he had still had his eyes, he would have rolled them. El really underestimated him, if the man didn’t know he would have figured out the situation all by himself, without resorting to stupid spy tricks like switching languages.

"You’re sure?" he called. He spoke in English. Just to make El nervous.

"Si," El said. "Es verdad." _It’s true._

"Anyone left alive?" he called.

"Nadie," El said. _No one._

"I guess this means we get to celebrate. How many beers are you going to have?"

"Solamente uno," El replied. _Only one._

Sands nodded. Just the one man, then. He had heard right.

Abruptly he wondered what would happen if he didn’t play his part in this game. What if he just stood here, and did nothing? What if the man in the courtyard got tired of waiting and decided to shoot El in the head?

Setting aside the fact that he probably wouldn’t get very far if he was left on his own, how would he feel if El died?

It was a good question. One to take time to consider. Maybe El had his little mariachi buddies, but Sands had no one. Mostly this had been by choice -- it wasn’t just recently that he had developed trust issues. But occasionally through the years there had been people he had genuinely liked, relationships he had tried for whatever reason to cultivate. Sometimes this had happened with women, sometimes with men. If the person in question was a woman, sometimes sex was involved, but not always. Usually he had just been seeking friendship.

But something within him didn’t seem to want him to have friends. He danced too close to the edge of sanity. And no one was quite smart enough, or funny enough, or tough enough. No one could measure up. If he couldn’t respect someone, how on earth could he stand them enough to want to be around them? And when he _had_ wanted to be around them, he had always wanted to be in control, and so inevitably they had all left. 

Except for El. 

Sands knew the mariachi had stayed because El didn’t think he had a choice. But that logic only applied one way. For Sands, there were no other options. El, however, could have walked away at any moment. The man didn’t seem to understand that, but it was true. El could have left, any time he wanted.

Only he hadn’t. He had stayed, for reasons known only to him, and now Sands was faced with an annoying dilemma. Did he let the man who might be the only friend he had ever had die a grisly death, or did he try to save that man, and surely die himself in the process?

He had heard the hesitation in El’s footsteps. He knew the mariachi was injured. The only question was how badly. El was still walking, and that was a good sign, but then again, a man could find the strength to do an awful lot when he had a gun pointed at the back of his head.

The man holding El hostage lost his patience. "Come out!" he shouted in heavily accented English. Was it Escalante himself? Sands supposed it could be. He wouldn’t know. He did know that the man sounded awfully familiar, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck rise. "Come out, and we will not kill you."

 _We?_ Sands thought. _What we? Your friends are dead, buddy._

But of course, he wasn’t supposed to know that. He was blind, which translated to ignorant, in the minds of men like Escalante.

Fair enough. Sands could play ignorant. 

"How do I know you’re telling the truth?" he called.

And he listened. No one moved in the courtyard. Escalante – if it was really him – was bluffing. 

"You will know when you are not dead," came the reply. "Throw your weapons out. Now!"

Sands hesitated. This was supposed to be his moment, his chance to prove himself. Was he really going to throw that all away for a mariachi?

Then he shrugged. _Que sera, sera._

He threw two of his pistols out into the courtyard, hesitated, then pulled a third from one of his shoulder holsters and tossed it away. The fourth he kept. He wished for his prosthetic arm then, wished for it more than anything. That handy little prop (ha ha, no pun intended) had saved his life more than once. But it was lost now, having been left in the plaza on the day he had killed Ajedrez. By the time he had thought to send the kid for it, it had been long gone, just another casualty of Marquez’s botched coup.

"Now step out into the courtyard! Slowly!"

"All right!" he called. "I’m coming! Don’t shoot!" _Come on, El. Talk to me, damnit. I can’t fucking see!_

And El, through some miracle, knew what he needed. The mariachi began to speak, guiding Sands with the sound of his voice. He sounded close to the other man, and that had to mean the man was holding El physically captive. "We need to be sure that you will do as you say. I know you are a man of your word, but there is still some doubt, you must understand." On and on El droned, and with every word Sands could hear the pain he was in.

He gripped the gun in his left hand and sidled up to the archway. He waved with his right. "Okay!" he shouted. "I’m coming out."

El kept talking, babbling on about honor and trust. Sands moved a little to his right, so Escalante could see him. He kept his left hand behind the stone wall. 

"Let me see your hands," ordered the man.

"Who are you?" Sands asked. He was curious. He knew that voice, somehow, although he couldn’t remember from where. If this man really was Escalante, he wanted to know.

"I am Ramon Escalante," said the man. "And you are Sands."

The whole nature of the day changed. Somewhere up above, Sands could almost swear he heard a heavenly choir break into song.

"Pleased to meet you," he drawled. He kept his voice light and cheerful so Escalante would not know the excitement that had filled him upon hearing the name. Everything was happening just like he had intended. He had wanted this chance, and lo and behold, here it was.

He had to work hard to keep from grinning insanely. He had not lost his touch. Even blind, he was still in control. 

Life was good. 

"Step into the courtyard," Escalante said. "Slowly. My men will shoot you if you take so much as one step that I do not wish."

Sands nodded. Some of the grin slipped out onto his face, but he was beyond caring. "Sure." He did not move.

He heard movement in the courtyard, and then El gave a pained groan, a sound unlike anything Sands had ever heard him make before. "You need to stop fucking around, and do as I say, Agent Sands," Escalante said.

Hearing the man say his name suddenly jolted his memory. His grin died. 

He knew where he had heard Escalante before. 

Escalante had been there. That day. The day that his life had forever changed. Escalante had been one of the men who had laughed him. 

Escalante had said, "It’s a bright day out there, Agent Sands. You wouldn’t want to forget these." Escalante had pushed the sunglasses onto his face, waking the pain that the drugs had successfully masked up until that point, making him scream and fall to his knees. 

"Sands." El’s voice was strained, tight with pain.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he muttered, still half-caught by the memory.

_This is it._

Oh yeah. Escalante was going down.

Sands stepped into the archway.

He made no effort to hide the gun as he switched it to his right hand. Casually he held it high, sideways, aimed at a point he fervently prayed was Escalante’s head. "Drop it, amigo."

El made that pained noise again. "You do not have the upper hand here, Agent Sands," said Escalante. "If you do not lower your weapon, you leave me no choice but to kill your friend here."

"Oh, he’s not my friend," Sands said airily. He moved his wrist a fraction to the left, using the sound of Escalante’s voice to correct his aim. "Kill him if you want. It makes no difference to me. All I care about is you."

"And if I call your bluff?" asked Escalante. He sounded bored.

"It’s no bluff," Sands said. He shrugged. "Go ahead."

Escalante said nothing. The courtyard was silent. 

It was the Day of the Dead all over again, Sands thought. Just him and the bad guy, facing off under the hot sun.

A lot had changed since then, though. On that day he had been half-dead already, reckless to the point of being suicidal. Nothing had mattered except killing the men who had hurt him in ways he had never even imagined could happen. He had not cared whether he lived or died, so long as he took them with him.

Today, thoughts of dying were the furthest thing from Sands’ mind. He completely forgot that he had been planning to kill himself if this day did not go well. "The things you’ve done," he said, his tone faintly scolding, like he was talking to a five year-old. "Why, I hear you shot a kid in Los Remedios."

He could almost hear the puzzled look on Escalante’s face.

He let his voice turn cold as he said his next words, the last words he had ever heard while he could still see. "We must make sure that doesn’t happen again."

He pulled the trigger.

And missed.

Escalante’s gun boomed, and a split second later Sands was spinning around as a bullet tore into his arm. _Hey, we’ve already done this!_ shouted the voice in his head, then it went prudently silent.

He raised the gun again. His left arm had gone dead at his side. There was no pain.

Escalante fired a second time. 

This time there was pain. A lot of it. He fell, landing on his back in the dirt. 

"I must say," Escalante said, "I am impressed, Agent Sands. Most men in your position would have not have gotten as far as you."

"I’ve always been a can-do kind of guy," Sands said. He had to fight for the necessary air to speak, force the words out past the pain in his chest. He had lost his grip on his gun when he fell, and he inched his hand to the right, trying to find it.

A bullet spanged into the dust, inches from his fingers. "Don’t move," Escalante ordered. Sands wondered if he had meant to miss.

_What the fuck are you doing now, El? Just standing there? Having fun yet, watching the blind man bleed to death? Move, you asshole!_

"You have done well," Escalante said. He did not sound bored now. Far from it. "But in the end, you still failed. Now you will both die."

And then noise filled the air, a confusing mix of sounds Sands could barely sort out. It was like the day he had been blinded, stepping out into the sunlight and being overwhelmed by the sounds of the street. He groped for his gun, and found it. His fingers closed round it, and he cried out in triumph.

With the gun in his hand, everything suddenly became very clear. El Mariachi and Ramon Escalante were struggling to overpower each other. The two men staggered across the courtyard like wrestlers, fighting for control of the gun Escalante still held.

Sands rose to one knee. "Move!" he roared.

There was the sound of a fist striking flesh, the most beautiful right cross Sands had ever heard. The two men separated, and their footsteps suddenly became distinguishable from each other again.

Sands took aim, and fired.

Escalante made no sound, but Sands knew his shot had hit home. The leader of the cartel took one drunken step backward, and collapsed.

A moment later, El dropped to the dirt.

Slowly, Sands lowered himself to the ground, until he was lying on his back. The pain in his chest was terrible. It was difficult to breathe. He coughed, and tasted blood in the back of his throat.

For a long moment he just lay there. Then he heard El stir. The mariachi began to crawl toward him.

"Are you still standing?" he whispered.

"Still," El whispered back. 

"We did it," he said. "Chalk one up for the good guys."

"Now you are a good guy?"

"Figure of speech," he said.

"Sands. Do you play the piano?"

"What? No."

"You saved my life," El said.

"Yeah? Don’t get used to it, though."

"Don’t worry. I won’t."

"Good. Now let’s get the fuck out here."

"Can you walk?"

"Oh sure. You?"

"No problem."

"Then let’s go."

***************

Epilogue

 

Ramirez didn’t get much mail, so he didn’t bother to check it very often. By the time he got the postcard, he guessed it had been sitting in his mailbox for almost a week.

The scene was a sunrise. Over the ocean. 

The writing on the back was small and cramped. Letters ran into each other, and the lines of print were crooked, slanting downhill. 

"Weather is here, wish you were fine. Hope the Cunts In Action haven’t been bothering you too much about me. ‘The’ says to say thank you, but you know what I say to that."

Ramirez knew. Two words, accompanied by a raised finger. He chuckled.

The last line read simply:

"See you around."

The postcard was from Puerto Vallarta.

Ramirez looked at it for a long moment, then threw back his head and laughed.

********

END


End file.
